


The Common Fate of All Things Rare

by Aloysia_Virgata, Scarlet



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Cancer Arc, Case File, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-04
Updated: 2008-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-08 06:54:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 46,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1930992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aloysia_Virgata/pseuds/Aloysia_Virgata, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet/pseuds/Scarlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever wonder what happened between the silence of Never Again and the flowers from Memento Mori? Ever wonder if Scully's night with Ed Jerse affected her relationship with Mulder in any way? Ever wonder what pushed Scully to go to the hospital and find out about her cancer in the first place? Ever wonder how her illness might have affected her work or if she ever thought about Leonard Betts' words?</p><p>Well, we did...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING  
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17TH  
8:56 AM

When the phone finally rings this morning, I dive to pick it up, my fingers closing on the receiver as though I am strangling my partner by proxy. I haven't heard from her in nearly thirty six hours. The aggravated manager from the Philadelphia hotel where she'd been staying had no clue about Miss Scully's whereabouts. She had not checked out; that's all he knew.

"Where the hell have you been?" I bark into the phone.

"Agent Mulder…"

I know Scully's voice goes deeper when she's tired, but I'm pretty sure that baritone means I've just yelled at my boss. "Sorry, sir. I thought it was Scully."

Skinner's pause is too long and it makes the hairs at the back of my neck prickle.

"I just got a call from the Philadelphia P.D.," he says. "Agent Scully was injured. She's at the hospital."

I feel something hard crush my chest and the pencil I've been playing with snaps in half between my fingers. "What happened?"

"The suspect is one Edward Jerse. He apparently tried to shove her into an incinerator yesterday morning. He's also the prime suspect in the murder of one of his neighbors the day before."

"Where was this?" I throw both broken pencil halves towards the trash can and miss.

"Near Center City in Philly. They've got her at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital right now."

I'm already yanking my coat on and come close to ripping the lining in my haste. "How bad is she hurt?"

"A few bruised ribs and a concussion. Fairly banged up, but nothing life-threatening."

The knot in my stomach loosens some. "Can I bring this Jerse guy back to DC for a cozy 8x8 suite on Uncle Sam's dime?"

“Don't be a pain in the ass, Mulder," Skinner growls on the other end of the line. "Just go check on her for now. And play nice with the Philly cops until I can get someone reputable from the local field office to deal with this."

I feel like kicking something hard, but instead I hang up, take the steps two at a time, and requisition a car.

**********

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA HOSPITAL  
PHILADELPHIA, PA  
12:52 PM

My information on what happened is still sketchy at best. I spent the most of the drive scrounging up details, but all I could gather was that the guy called the FBI switchboard asking for Dana Scully. And that her injuries occurred shortly afterwards. The charred remains of his neighbor were found in the same incinerator where he'd planned to shove Scully. He was still at the scene when EMTs and the police arrived, and the Philly PD had him in custody.

No one could give me much info on how this Edward Jerse character figured into our investigation. His apartment was well south of the Russian neighborhoods and he had no prior criminal history to indicate involvement with Pudovkin or Svo.

I am more and more curious to know what led her to him in the first place and I have to control the urge to fidget impatiently as I stop at the nurse's station to find out where she is.

When I reach Scully's room I see two men by her door; local detectives by the looks of them. The younger one is sitting and jotting things on an immaculate white pad while his colleague is scanning a file and twirling the corner of an impressive walrus mustache. He's the first one to spot me.

"Agent Mulder?"

"Is she in here?"

The young guy stands up. He's got the fresh-faced air of a Mormon missionary. "Yes, but the nurse is with her." He extends his hand and I shake it briefly. “I'm Detective Smith and this is Detective Gouveia. We're hoping you can help us with a couple of things." Smith runs a finger between his collar and neck somewhat nervously. "Your partner…well, she's not been very forthcoming.”

Hasn't she? Take a number.

"Forthcoming about what? You caught the guy who hurt her, right?"

Detective Smith looks sympathetic. “We did, but there are a few things that don't quite add up and, because of the circumstances, Agent Scully's been a little…reticent."

Gouveia snorts. It complements his facial hair and I consider offering him a dead mackerel. Or slapping him with one.

I glare at him. "If you have something to say, just say it."

He shrugs. "Seems Agent Scully and Mr. Jerse spent the evening together. Had a few drinks, hit up a tattoo parlor. And I guess it was a pretty nice time because she never went back to her hotel that night."

She did *what*? "I think you've gotten your wires crossed somewhere, Detective.”

Smith taps the edge of his notebook against his palm, obviously hesitant to continue. "Your partner requested a blood test. Jerse claims his tattoo drove him nuts, and Agent Scully seems to think his behavior might have been caused by the ink used. Which happens to be the same ink used in her own tattoo."

"My partner got tattooed?" I must have fallen down a trapdoor through the multiverse. This is definitely not my world. I’m expecting a white rabbit with a big watch any minute now.

"Tramp stamp, dead center. Very classy," Gouveia sneers.

I feel the muscles in my hands start to curl into fists. Play nice, Skinner said. Fine. I'll play nice. And then I'll snatch this case out from under them as soon as they tell me what I need to know.

The young detective moves between me and Gouveia with the fluid ease of a guy who knows it’s his job to soften the edges. I wonder if Scully has ever felt that way around me. I turn towards him, cutting his partner out of the conversation.

"And she just told you all of this?"

"Not exactly. The first time we met Agent Scully was yesterday morning. Kaye Schilling had been reported missing and we were going door to door in the building. When we got to Jerse's place, it was your partner who answered. "

"And?" And I know exactly what, but I feel a perverse desire to defend Scully's honor. If anyone's going to cast aspersions on her, it will be me. I'm so noble that way.

"She was wearing a man's shirt, Agent Mulder, and her appearance generally indicated that she'd just woken up.”

“We’re big fans of Occam’s Razor,” Gouveia points out.

Oh, Scully, what the fuck were you doing there?

I know the operative word is somewhere in that sentence and I just can't believe that a woman who has marveled at the stupidity of casual sex could ever be so reckless. Do all of her dates involve one night stands and body modification?

I really don't know how to feel about this. There are so many options, and I know that tonight I will have the fun of experiencing and dissecting them all. In any case, right now all I can do is double bag everything, seal it tight, and slam the lid shut on the great shoe box labeled "She Keeps Me Guessing."

I fix Smith with a cool, even gaze. "Tell me more about the tattoo. Jerse said it drove him nuts?"

Smith flips some pages on his pad before answering. I think he does this more to avoid looking at me rather than a need for a memory boost.

"Mr. Jerse believes that his tattoo directed him to kill Miss Schilling. Agent Scully thinks that he's been suffering from hallucinations brought on by ergot poisoning, due to contaminated rye used for the red ink of the tattoo. We've sent his blood to the lab and we're waiting for the results to see if this theory pans out."

"Where's this tattoo parlor?"

"Some Russian dive near Bustleton, though Jerse was the one who told us about it. Your partner…well, apart from the ergot poisoning thing, she refuses to speak to us. Which is why we'd really appreciate your help."

I shove both hands in my pockets and rock back on my heels. "Well, I'm afraid you're out of luck. Phone records indicate this guy called the Bureau to ascertain that Scully was in fact a federal agent. He knew it when he attacked her, which places his assault under federal jurisdiction. You fellas better run along and get busy if you want him for murder."

Smith closes his eyes and looks tired while Gouveia takes a step closer to me. "In the future, keep your partner on a shorter leash instead of wasting our time. You never know; she might like it."

I don't even think. I react. My hand is around Gouveia's meaty throat and his head slams against the wall as my fingers dig in under his jaw. "You watch your goddamned mouth."

He smirks. "Thoughtless of me. I'm sure this affects you on a personal level."

I push him against the wall a little harder and Smith taps my elbow. "You don't want to do that, Agent Mulder."

Oh, but I do.

I hesitate and then release Gouveia with some regret. He clears his throat and straightens his tie.

"Let's go," says Detective Smith.

"We'll be in touch, Agent Mulder," Gouveia tells me. It sounds like a threat.

As they leave I can hear him tell Smith, "I don't know why he's so worked up. I would give my right hand to have a kinky redhead for a partner. No offense, Matt."

"Lewis, if you had a kinky redhead for a partner, you'd need your right hand more than ever."

***

Same smell of antiseptic and bleach. Same low electric hum of monitors and machinery. Same irritating squeak of dress shoes on worn-out linoleum.

I've lost track of how many times I've lived this moment, heading down a drab hallway to find Scully wearing another shapeless cotton gown in another uncomfortable bed. The scenery shifts a bit, the background players have different faces, but Scully and I are once again the stars of Hospital Room Improv.

A nurse emerges from Scully's room and treads silently down the hall in her rubber shoes. I catch the edge of the door and push it back open.

Scully's picking at the blanket draped over her, a magazine lying closed on her lap. She's got a goose egg on her forehead and miscellaneous cuts and abrasions about the face and neck. There's a nasty looking bruise on her right arm, just above the elbow. And another set of bruises above it that appear to be finger marks.

She turns when the door creaks and her eyes widen a fraction at the sight of me, but she quickly smoothes her face back into a disinterested mask. "Mulder. You didn't have to come all the way here."

"What happened, Scully?"

She speaks to me as though I am a particularly dim child, her voice a precise monotone. "You sent me to Philadelphia on a case. I was attacked by a murder suspect. Now I'm at the hospital. I could have told you this over the phone."

I cross my arms and give her an arch look. "If you'd called. Which would have been nice. Let me know you were okay and everything. Besides, it seems you've left out a few significant details. Sloppy reporting, Agent Scully."

She pins me with a withering gaze. "Well, you obviously found them out, so you can go back home now. And thanks for checking up on me."

"Not so fast. You're an FBI agent, as you may recall. Even when you're engaged in…recreational activities. It appears discovering your G-woman identity set Jerse off. You know that makes this a federal investigation."

"And you've decided to add this to your UFO-rich workload? How chivalrous." She opens the magazine and examines it incuriously.

"No. Skinner just told me to play nice with the local boys until the Philly field office coughs up someone he trusts enough to handle it."

She looks up at this. "Handle what? There doesn't need to be an investigation. I'm not pressing charges."

"The guy tried to turn your ass into S'mores and you won't press charges?"

"He's already being charged for murder; there's no need."

"It's not your call."

She shrugs indifferently. "What else is new?"

She's letting me know something with this; something important about her and her needs and the way we work. And in any other circumstances I would have caught her pitch and demanded to know what the hell kind of a curve ball she was throwing at me. But I need to stand on firmer ground to do it properly; not here in this sterile room as she looks at me like that, all banged up and distant and strange.

So I change the subject. "Can I see your tattoo? It sounds kind of hot."

I never said I was going for transitional subtlety.

She sits up fully, wincing as she does, and drops her magazine to the night table before turning to me. "Is there something you'd like to ask me that actually pertains to the case?"

I arrange my face into a thoughtful expression. "If Comrade Svo is Boris Badenov, does that make me Rocky or Bullwinkle? I'm thinking Bullwinkle because I'm taller, but I look better in hats than you."

She closes her eyes briefly and exhales a long-suffering sigh. "They're releasing me this afternoon pending some blood work. Go home."

"Yeah, about that blood work. Not just a tattoo, Scully. A psychedelic tattoo. You really know how to live it up in the City of Brotherly Love. I usually just get a cheesesteak."

She turns her head to stare out the window and I see more bruises smudged against the white line of her neck. There's one tucked into the tendons of her throat that looks suspiciously like a bite mark. For Christ's sake, Scully.

”Is that what's making you act like this, Mulder? That I did something you didn't expect? That I didn't fit your profile?"

Mostly.

"What's upsetting me is that you were almost killed and that you don't seem too concerned about it. I need your help to get this guy. Do you know what he did to his neighbor? He dismembered her with poultry shears and a saw and stuffed her into a cardboard box. He then fed her piece by piece into the incinerator, which is where they found her bones and her teeth and the melted locket she got as a graduation gift. "

Scully goes still for a moment, then her shoulders drop a fraction and she looks down at her hands. The knuckles of the right are scraped raw. "We had a few drinks. We went to the, uh, tattoo parlor and then back to his place. The weather was bad. I decided not to drive back to the hotel."

She swallows and then I see a stream of dark blood come from her nose and spill over her lips and chin.

"Scully! Jesus." I look around for a tissue but she's already got one, dabbing at her face while she pinches her nose and tilts her chin upwards to staunch the flow.

"It's nothing. The air in here is so dry."

Her nose isn't broken so I must accept her word that I cannot lay this at the feet of Edward Jerse. Back to questioning. "What happened in the morning? The detectives said that you answered the door."

She drops her hand from her face and looks at me sharply. "You know all this already then. Do you just like hearing me say it?" Her voice is angry now, which is almost a welcome change from the flat affect of before.

"I need your perspective on what happened. Details, his frame of mind, triggers. Help me get into his head."

"Why? He's been caught and he's confessed. You don't need to profile him now. Just drop it."

"Aren't you curious to know why he did what he did? What made him tick?"

"He was hallucinating, Mulder. You want me to get into someone's head, you bring me a corpse and a skull key. This is your area of expertise. Not mine."

Maybe she doesn't want me to get into his head because I might look into her own while I'm there. "Why are you protecting him? He must have been great in the sack, Scully. But the thing is, you’re federal property and the government doesn't like seeing its agents get smacked around. Even if they like it a little."

A subtle change comes over her face, hardening her jaw and narrowing her eyes ever so slightly. "Get. Out."

I glance at my watch. "I've got a hot date with your boy toy anyway. I'll send him your love."

She doesn't deign to reply; just stares fixedly ahead in her maddening way.

I leave her room and head for the Burn Center at Temple University Hospital, where I hope for a warmer reception from Ed Jerse: Homicidal Maniac.

***  
ST JOHN BURN CENTER  
PHILADELPHIA, PA  
2:48 PM

I impatiently jiggle some loose change in my pocket, wishing I had X-ray vision while the cop guarding the hospital room unlocks the door. I am about to meet Edward Jerse, the man who laid his hands on my partner.

The man who left bruises on her skin.

Some of which I am now pretty sure she didn't entirely object to.

The man who then beat her up and tried to shove her unconscious body into an incinerator like she was a bag of dry leaves.

I feel the love.

The cop pushes the door open and steps sideways to let me in. An acidic web lines my stomach as I enter.

I expect a monster. I want him ugly, one cleft palate away from white trash inbreeding, but the man who raises his head and stares at me anxiously as I step inside the cramped white room is disappointingly normal. I hear the door being locked behind me, the sound metallic and final.

So that's Ed Jerse. Rather handsome, dark hair, blue eyes and young. Somehow I've always pictured Scully going for older men; the bookish university professor type, with glasses and worn tweed suits. This guy does not fit the profile at all.

The skin around his eyes is red and puffy. Poor baby.

"Edward Jerse? I'm Special Agent Mulder, Agent Scully's partner." I hope the full title will make him shake in his boots.

He straightens up. "Oh, God. Dana. Is she okay?"

Dana.

I pull up a chair and sit in front of his bed, picking up the scents of iodine and cotton and charred flesh from the gauze-wrapped bundle of his arm. "It seems a bit late to worry about her well-being, don't you think, Ed?"

He rubs his eyes and runs his good hand through his hair with the jerky movements of the sleep-deprived. "Look, if you're here to tell me what a crazy sack of shit I am, don't bother. I already know."

"You think you're crazy?"

"My Betty Page tattoo told me to kill people. What do you think?"

Where is your remorseless psychopath when you need one? Virgil Incanto, I miss you, buddy. I want to retain the cold, cold rage I nurtured all the way here, the one that made me want to kick Ed's teeth in and bash his pretty boy face viciously until I hear bone crack; but he looks so lost and dejected I can't seem to get a proper grip on my fury now that I'm sitting in front of him.

This guy is no Ted Bundy.

I rest my elbows over the bed rail and steeple my fingers. "Ed, why don't you start from the beginning and tell me what happened?"

He smirks joylessly. "I got the tattoo I deserved."

And he tells me about his divorce. How ugly it went, how devastated he was when he found out that his wife was moving to California with the kids and he would hardly ever see them.

He tells me about getting blind drunk and getting his tattoo. How he started hearing the voice of a woman in his head mocking him and calling him a loser, how he lost his job because of it and how he thought in his delirium that the downstairs neighbor was taunting him.

"I just wanted that voice to stop. It was right inside my head, She was laughing and...and hateful and it was driving me fucking crazy." He stops and looks at his good hand as if he could still see the blood on it. "I completely lost it."

"Did you kill Kaye Schilling, Ed?"

"Yes, I did."

I was at least expecting an attempt at denial or some 'it wasn't my fault' argument, but Ed doesn't seem to care enough about himself to lie. What I have here is major damaged goods. I stand up and knock at the door. The chubby police officer who let me in opens it and I ask him if we can get something to drink. He nods and the door closes again.

I turn back to Ed, who's staring at the wall. "How did you meet Agent Scully?"

"She came in the shop when I went back in the morning to ask that Russian guy to cover that damn tattoo. He asked her what she thought of it and we got talking."

Hmm…she was probably following Pudovkin. I take the chair and turn it around so I can straddle it. "And you asked her out?"

"Uh…yes. No. I don't know. I was wondering what someone like her was doing in such a crappy neighborhood. She sure didn't look like a regular customer. But she seemed lonely and, uh, kind of sad and there was like a vibe between us, so I gave her my card in case she wanted to go to dinner." He smiles ruefully. "I never thought she'd call."

I know Scully was feeling blue before leaving for Philadelphia – our parting conversation had been less than cheerful and she was mad at me for sending her here. I guess my phone call where I all but questioned her abilities to handle the case didn't help either. Would she have called Jerse if I had been less of an asshole?

A vibe; right.

A knock on the door makes Ed start. I get up and accept the two cans of Dr. Pepper from the cop before returning by the bed. I set one can in front of Ed, who ignores it and gives me a pathetic look.

"Please, at least tell me she's not hurt too badly."

The bastard actually seems to sincerely care. I open my drink and take a sip. "She's got a concussion and some bruised ribs. It must hurt like hell when she breathes. I bet you hit her pretty hard, didn’t you, Ed?"

Jerse makes a pained sound in his throat and takes hold of the wheeled stainless steel tray table. He does his one-armed best to steady it, then slams his forehead right on the edge.

"Hey!"

His soda rolls onto the bed as he does it again, and again. The idiot wants to split his head open.

"Ed! Cut it out!"

I move around the bed to stop him and wrap my arm around his throat in a headlock as he struggles against me. "Ed, that's enough."

He suddenly goes slack and I release him.

"Are you done?" I ask behind his back.

He rubs his hand against his neck and, as his hospital gown collar slips a bit, I notice something. Oh, this can't be what I think it is. I push his head to one side and pull on the fabric to take a closer look. Holy fuck. It *is* exactly what I think it is.

I may lack Scully's forensic expertise, but I hardly need dental records to know whose teeth left that neat ring above his collarbone. His 'n' hers. How cute.

Ed shrugs me off and pulls at his gown self-consciously before looking up at me – his tone suddenly defensive. "I didn't rape her, you know."

"That's not what she said."

His eyes narrow. He knows immediately that I'm baiting him. "You're lying."

“How do you know?"

"Because she wouldn't."

"You think a one-night stand gives you insight into what my partner would and wouldn't do?"

"Maybe I know more than you think. She talked to me, man." He retrieves the can from his bed and traces patterns on it with his thumb. "Sometimes it's easier to let go with a stranger."

And that she did. "Too bad you tried to kill her. You guys might have had something really special."

His head drops and he is quiet for a while, turning the can over and over between his fingers. When he looks back up his eyes are bright and pleading. "Could you please tell her how sorry I am? It won't mean much to her now, but for what it's worth, I really am."

"I'll let her know." I stand up and cross the room. The guard sees me through the window and ambles over to unlock the door.

I glance back at Ed, who is staring at his drink as though he's waiting for a sign. "You're right, Ed. I was lying. If you had done such a thing to her, you'd be dead already."

He nods and, for a heartbeat, we share an understanding. But the moment passes and I leave him to his demons while I head back into the stinging January drizzle to face my own.

***  
J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING  
TUESDAY, JANUARY 21st  
7:51 AM

I'm walking down the hall more briskly than usual, the sharp click of my heels making me feel efficient and purposeful. In addition to a sarcastic reception from Mulder, yesterday morning brought unabashed stares and some whispering, so I arrived an hour early today in hopes of avoiding an encore. I'm almost to the elevator when Skinner's assistant comes up to me.

"Agent Scully? Assistant Director Skinner would like to see you right away."

I knew this was coming and that not being summoned yesterday was only a stay of execution. My stomach lurches slightly anyway.

I follow Kim up to Skinner's office and notice her sneaking in a stare when she thinks I'm not looking. I feel like slamming the door in her face, but instead push it gently closed as protocol dictates.

“Welcome back, Agent Scully,” Skinner says.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Back on your feet?”

If Mulder had said that, I'd assume the word choice was deliberate. But coming from Skinner, I let it slide. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Please, take a seat.” I perch at the edge of a chair, attempting to look both relaxed and engaged, which is no mean feat in my present state.

Skinner returns to his desk. He looks at me like I’m some new fish he never noticed was in his tank before. “I understand you’re reluctant to participate in the federal case against Edward Jerse.”

“That’s correct, sir.” I’m sitting very straight with my hands resting flat over my thighs, trying to focus on how the fabric of my skirt feels under my palms. Anything to make me forget that the soles of my feet are itching with the urge to bolt.

Skinner folds his hands on the desk. “Unfortunately, it's not really an option. The man tried to kill you. We just can’t let him get away with this.”

“With all due respect, sir, he did not attack me because I was a federal agent; he attacked me because he was hallucinating.”

“From what we've pieced together, he called the Bureau switchboard asking for you just before the attack. That seems to indicate your position may have been a motive.”

I shift in my seat, trying not to wince as a stabbing pain shoots through my battered ribs. “I doubt he can be held responsible for his actions at that time. He's already confessed to murder and it is my opinion that he committed his crimes under the influence of a psychotropic substance. Keeping him in prison longer for his assault on me isn't going to make the world a safer place. What difference does this make?"

Skinner pushes his glasses further up his nose and settles back in his seat. “The difference, Agent Scully, is that if the Bureau goes after him, we can't be accused of going easy on the guy.”

Just because he got lucky with one of our agents, is what he doesn’t say. But the unspoken words hang in the air like a greasy fog.

I remain silent and stare at the brass lamp on his desk.

Skinner brings his hands forward and leans towards me. “What the hell were you thinking, Dana? Do you have any idea how bad this makes the Bureau look?” His voice is edged with the tremors of someone trying very hard not to shout.

I look straight at him. “Well, I guess that makes us even now.”

Skinner blinks, the Marine equivalent of a shocked gasp. Yes, Walter, I remember when you were an embarrassment to the Bureau too.

“Don’t play games with me, Scully. You were on a case,” he hisses between clenched teeth.

“Actually, I wasn’t anymore. I’d given the case to the local PD. And if this is such an embarrassment to the Bureau, why the hell do you want to drag it in front of a courtroom?"

“I don't want to drag this in front of a judge any more than you do, but the law is the law. You're an FBI agent, and your behavior should always reflect that. We take pride in the standards we set; even Mulder knows that. You’re the last person I thought I would have to give this lecture to.”

Oh, I’ve had enough of this.

“Are we talking double standards here, sir? It's okay for you to pick up a woman at a bar but I can’t accept a dinner invitation from a guy I just met?"

“I was set up. I didn’t get drunk and get myself a tattoo.”

“I wasn’t drunk.”

Skinner stares at me for a long time. The new fish may not be a fish at all. “I didn’t ask you up here to argue with you about your life choices, Agent Scully. The Bureau will be moving forward with the case against Edward Jerse, whether you like it or not. It's my hope that I will not have to order you to comply.”

He opens a folder on his desk and pulls out two thick folders before picking up the phone. "Agent Mulder? I'd like you to come up to my office. Agent Scully's here already and I have an assignment for the two of you."

I sit rigidly in my chair and try not to look sullen while Skinner organizes his paperwork. Mulder appears in mercifully short order and takes a seat next to me. "So what's the assignment?" he asks with contrived lightness, keeping his eyes on Skinner. I don't seem to register much beyond the chair I'm sitting in.

Skinner hands a folder to each of us and begins speaking as we flip through pages of gory details.

"A series of kidnappings and homicides in Baltimore. The local police aren't making much headway and our guy observes a strict timetable. He kidnaps a victim, kills her, then leaves her body at the home of the next woman he kidnaps. This occurs five days from the date of abduction. His second victim was found this morning. The woman who we hope will not become the third was taken from the apartment."

Mulder looks up from an 8x10 glossy. "Sir, this case is clearly disturbing, but it's not an X-File."

"This guy is working fast, Mulder. Serial killers are a breed all their own, and it's a breed you know well. The ritualistic elements of the crime scene were enough to get it assigned to you."

Mulder throws an uncertain look towards me. He thinks I’m not ready to go back in the field. I avoid his gaze and examine a picture of one of the dead women. She is lying on a wooden floor, her left breast cut away and the ribs exposed. A patch of bone has been cut away and then replaced just slightly off-center. Her throat has been slit several inches superior to the clavicles. Just above her head, the word "sinister" is scratched into the floor. To say the least, I think.

Mulder is reading a page of the report. "Their hearts were removed?"

Skinner nods grimly. "And replaced with small metal beads that have been identified as selenium. April Larsen, the woman taken today, was a nurse at Union Memorial. She never showed up for her 6 AM shift and when police went to her apartment to check on her, they found the body of Heike Brandstatter, the last woman taken. I want you both to head to Baltimore immediately. Based on the coroner's estimated time of death, the women are killed approximately twenty-four hours prior to being left at the scene. We have less than four days."

He watches us intently for a moment and then turns his attention to another file. "That'll be all," he says.

Mulder opens the door in his oblivious, gentlemanly way. I walk out into the hall, studiously ignoring Kim's transparent curiosity.

Mulder and I head to the elevator. "I need to go get my coat from the office," he says. "And grab some clothes from my apartment. You need anything?"

"No, I still have my bags in the trunk."

He presses the down button. "Okay. Well, uh, do you want to meet me at my place or should I pick you up here? Or what?"

He's trying, I tell myself. Be appreciative. "Thanks, Mulder. Pick me up at Constitution Gardens, would you?"

His face registers surprise, but he doesn't comment. "Sure thing. I'll be about an hour, then we can hit the road." He presses the elevator button a few more times. "Are you sure you're up for this, Scully? They mostly need a profiler for this case. Skinner would understand if you need more time to recover."

The elevator arrives and we step in. "Thanks Mulder, but I'm okay."

He looks like he wants to say something else, but I stare ahead until the doors slide open at the lobby. "I'll see you in an hour or so, then," I tell him.

I walk back out into the gray morning and hail a cab.


	2. Chapter 2

CONSTITUTION GARDENS  
9:03 AM

The Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Wall is a stark and imposing thing. A rising circumflex accent made of seventy-five meters of solid black granite; sloping upwards from eight inches high to an apex of just over ten feet. And then back down again. Standing before the Wall, one is reflected in the highly polished panels, appearing like a specter behind the seemingly endless lines of names.

All along the base are tributes to the dead. The other night I plucked a single rose petal from among these trophies. And like the soldier it was left here to honor, it too has crumbled away to dust.

Leonard Betts's voice has been playing in a steady loop inside my head since we left Pittsburgh. "You have something I need."

You can't sense that a person has cancer, says the part of my brain where Doctor Scully, M.D. resides. It's impossible.

But Agent Scully, who has seen inexplicable things, is not so sure. Why didn't you want the doctor to do a CT scan in Philly?

Because the Glasgow Coma Scale did not indicate it, the good doctor points out. No need. No memory loss. Alert and responsive. Pupils equal size.

Sure, says the woman who is twice an X-File herself. How's that nosebleed?

Doctor Scully sniffs in annoyance. Dry air.

Whatever. Checked in on Betsy Hagopian lately?

I close my eyes and sigh. This inner dialogue is driving me insane. I still haven't told Mulder what Leonard said to me. What I'm afraid it could mean. And how crazy I think that fear makes me.

I look up when I hear a rustling noise and see an older woman stoop down to make a rubbing of someone's name. She wears a wedding ring on her right hand. Widowed. Was this her young husband who died? Is this all she has left of him?

The nature of my job has made death an intrinsic part of my life, but losing my father and my sister so recently has made me fully appreciate that actuarial tables do not represent a guarantee.

It seems so wrong to die of cancer. I'm young. I'm fit. I order my salad dressing on the side and that college smoking habit has dwindled to the occasional stressed-out cigarette. I have imagined that if I were to die of anything other than old age, it would be work related. A blaze of glory, not a slow decay.

I thought about this a lot on the trip back from the Betts case. What mark would I leave behind if I died? No spouse, no kids. I don't even have fish. The X-Files office is Mulder's territory; I'm still a guest there. No desk to clean out. No pictures to take down and send to my next of kin. Mulder said he thought of the back area as mine, but everything back there is a permanent fixture. I could go and it would stay, leaving no empty space to say, "Scully was here."

A few more people shuffle past, their faces tucked into scarves against the cold. Hands slip out of gloves to touch the etched names frozen in this bleak place. The Wall is dug into the earth like a grave, and the full height of it creeps up on you slowly, swallowing you in a V of black stone. It is a place of deep and foreboding sadness.

I had a gravestone, I have discovered. My mother had it made when I was taken away. She didn't think I would ever come back. But Mulder did, Mom told me tearfully. He was angry with her, and disappointed. Mulder believes in the fantastic, and he believed in me.

Past tense. What happened in Philadelphia left a serious dent in my profile, and what Mulder doesn't understand, he doesn't trust.

Contrary to popular belief, Mulder doesn't do blind faith.

I look one last time at my dark reflection and the thin scars of names seem to be crossing me out over and over again, negating my existence.

There isn't anything to worry about, says Doctor Scully in her clipped voice. Nothing's wrong with you.

I pull my collar up and walk away.

***  
1621 ALICEANNA STREET  
BALTIMORE, MD  
11:09 AM

Mulder and I make our way to a wide living room where the forensic team is still collecting evidence and dusting for prints. A tall man in a black trench coat is talking with one of his colleagues in the living room.

"Tell them I'm busy not finding their daughter."

"Jack, come on. They just want to meet the guy who's in charge."

"I don't have time for this, Charlie. You go play the lapdog." Charlie walks off and Jack redirects his attention to a pair of techs crouched next to the coffee table. "No, Rick! Just use the bi-chromatic powder for that." Rick sighs and pokes around the box at his feet.

"And Jasper - last warning. It is not charmingly ironic to wear serial killer movie shirts to crime scenes."

Jasper looks down at his Manhunter shirt. "Sorry," he mumbles.

Jack turns abruptly and notices us. "Ah, here's the Hoover cavalry. So nice of you to come. It's hard to find good help these days." He gestures broadly to Rick and Jasper.

"We're helpful," says Rick sullenly. "You'd be nothing without us."

"And my shirt was a tribute to the profiler guy," Jasper adds, pointing at Mulder. He waves at me. "Hello, Clarice."

Jack rolls his eyes. "Thank you, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern."

We introduce ourselves and wait for him to do the same. Instead he ogles me shamelessly. "Nice suit. Shame about the badge."

"Didn't you get the memo? Law enforcement agencies are supposed to get along now," Mulder says, stepping in front of me.

"The memo, right. That must be where the ink on my ass came from." Oh Mulder, it looks like we just found you a match in the smart-alec department.

The detective is carelessly handsome, slightly taller than Mulder and broader through the shoulders. A thin scar cuts across his face from his left eye to the top of his mouth. His dress shirt is slightly rumpled; blue tie loosened at the collar. He jams his hands deep into his pockets and catches me watching him; holding my stare with his dark eyes and -

\- Ed's mouth is hard against mine, one hand pulling my hips against his, the other tugging impatiently at my shirt - closing on my breast. It's been so long and I don't have to see him again and he's kissing me, kissing me as I -

I avert my eyes, feeling myself blush.

Mulder rubs his hands together while scanning the room. "We read through the case file. Body of a prior kidnapping victim left behind and the occupant of the home taken?"

Our companion shakes his head with a mock sigh. "It's getting tragically routine. This guy's just determined to remove their left breasts, take out their hearts, fill the chest with metal beads, and make off with a new victim."

Bold words, but his dark eyes look tired and his hair - touched with gray at the temples - appears not to have been cut recently. His fingers tap against his thigh in the jittery way of someone who has been living on too much coffee and too little sleep.

"Is the body still here?" Mulder asks.

"She was starting to stain the rug. We sent her for an autopsy to teach her a lesson." He steps over a tech and points to a dark spot on the floor.

I crouch over it. "She wasn't killed here. So how'd he get a body in without anyone noticing? And how did he get April Larsen out?"

"I assume those are rhetorical questions for the moment."

"I didn't catch your name," Mulder says.

"I didn't give it to you. I'm Detective Wickham. But you can just call me Detective Wickham."

Mulder serves him the whatever-you-say-asshole nod and smile combo I've learned to spot over the years.

I get to my feet and gaze absently at the rug, letting the image swim in front of my eyes while I think. "There are no connections among these women beyond being single and living in a certain geographic area. And those are both likely just factors of convenience. What does he see in them?" I wonder aloud.

Wickham eyes me up, lips curved in a knowing smile, as if he'd seen something in me that he knows I didn't mean to share. "You're the pathologist? Why don't you head down to Penn Street and the folks there will let you play with all of their pointy toys? Crime scene's pretty much under control. These guys here are checking for fingerprints. We've been told that's useful."

"And why don't you tell us what exactly it is you've been doing that would be deemed useful since these murders began, Detective?" I snap back.

He laughs. "Oh, be still my heart."

"She can arrange that for you." Mulder kneels with his head tilted as he examines the floor boards and traces a gloved finger along the letters carved there.

Mulder gets back to his feet and looks down at the place where the body was lying, as though meaning will reveal itself with the proper view. "Scully…" he says, resting his hand on my back.

I flinch and pull away before I realize it. Mulder's eyebrow quirks slightly, but he says nothing. Detective Wickham, however, has clearly noticed and is looking at the both of us with the calculating eye of a scientist given a rare and unexpected specimen. I'm cursing myself for being so careless and hurry to distract him from whatever analysis he's begun to establish in his head.

"I was hoping you could answer a few questions for us before I begin the autopsy, Detective."

"Isn't your job supposed be answering a few questions for me? Isn't that how it works? The mighty FBI swooping in from DC to enlighten us poor fumbling rubes? "

Mulder steps in before I lose my temper. "Detective Wickham, my background is as a behavioral analyst. Why don't you let me see what I come up with and then you can decide if my profile is of any use to you?"

Wickham shrugs indifferently. "That's fine, Agent Mulder. You do whatever it is you do. Get in his head, analyze his mother, make a list of his probable favorite foods and start canvassing restaurants. I don't really care. As long as you do it without interfering with my end of things, you'll get no complaints from me."

He has turned away from us to begin directing the team to pack up the evidence they've gathered and Mulder and I are left standing uselessly, like the last kids chosen in gym class.

"You heading over to the ME's?" Mulder asks me.

"Might as well. There's nothing else to do here. I'm going to grab something to eat first and review the autopsy notes again before I get started. I don't want to find another body on Saturday. We have to find this guy."

Mulder is watching me too closely and I feel as though every bruise and scrape is emitting a flashing light to catch his eye.

"Cut it out, Mulder. I'm fine."

My partner doesn't respond, but gives me a hard look and then scans the room one more time as though memorizing it. He hands me the car keys, then takes his leave.

"Detective Wickham?" I begin. The man unsettles me somehow, but I need his cooperation.

"You're still here? How I've missed your dulcet tones in the past few minutes."

"I'm heading over to the Medical Examiner's office to get started on the autopsy. Will any of your people be joining me?"

"Oh, pick me!" says Rick, waving his hand while doing a terrible rendition of John Hiatt's "I Spy for the FBI."

Wickham ignores him. "My people? I don't really have any people. But *I'll* be coming along, now that you've usurped my authority and have turned out to be impressively attractive."

I groan inwardly, but manage a tight smile. "Well, you can meet me there in an hour."

"It's a date."

I give no reply and leave in search of someplace quiet where I can obtain lunch and water to wash down the Motrin I need to fight off the monster headache I've got coming on.

***

There's a dingy restaurant across from the Medical Examiner's office and I'm sitting at a corner table, picking at an egg salad sandwich and reviewing autopsy data before I take a look at the body found this morning.

Cause of death in the prior case was due to the severing of the carotid arteries and the jugular veins and there's no reason to expect otherwise in this instance. The incision was neat - ear to ear - and was done in a fluid, even motion with no evident hesitation. The blood loss would have been enormous and messy, so it is highly unlikely that either victim was killed at the scene. Histology reports for the first victim came in this morning; serotonin and free histamine levels indicating that death was extremely rapid. The removal of the left breast and the heart were both post-mortem. Both bodies show signs of refrigeration.

The waitress plunks down the steaming mug of coffee I ordered and her mouth widens in an O of shock when she sees the pictures scattered around my plate. I smile tightly as she backs away from the table, eyeing me cautiously.

I sigh and swallow half of the coffee in one long gulp. It's terrible, but it's caffeinated and thus perfectly suitable.

A toxicology screen indicates sedation by flunitrazepam and sevoflurane. Stomach contents consisted of bread, fruit, and venison. The women were kept in generally good condition prior to their deaths with no evidence of torture or sexual abuse.

Chewing thoughtfully on a chunk of celery, I wonder about the apparent lack of motive. Because the crimes have come so close together, it has been difficult for anyone to completely figure out exactly what's going on. I read the notes over again, wondering what I'm missing. How is he getting the bodies in and the women out undetected? Why does he take the hearts and breasts? And what possible motive could anyone have for such brutality? He scratched the word sinister onto the knotted pine floor. Does it mean he is not unaware of his evil?

I write "sinister" on a napkin and doodle around it, waiting for an epiphany.

I know these questions are circulating through Mulder's head right now, working deep into his brain, intersecting in an elaborate neural network. An EEG of his prefrontal cortex would be a wonder to behold.

I'm not sure exactly where we stand with each other right now. Is Mulder another one of those controlling authority figures? Is he someone else I've let down? The jury's still out on that, really. I know he's disappointed in me, but I'm not sure if it's professionally or personally. Mulder has managed to slip past my defenses and become more than a metaphor for the father I was never sure I could please. I'm not certain how to proceed with that. My relationship with him is a strange and wonderful thing, constantly evolving and throwing me off guard.

Mulder and I have always played at flirtatiousness and he is undeniably attractive, but lately I feel something more serious growing between us. Unsurprisingly, it has made me distance myself from him slightly. I like to believe it has to do with where I am in my life right now rather than a genuine romantic interest, but I know better than to over-think it.

To distract myself, I drain my mug and signal the waitress for a refill, then cringe slightly at the memory of what I confessed to Ed. "There are other fathers." Oh, Dana. How *could* you? The idea of what the trial will be like is ice water down my spine.

I shake my head, hoping the thoughts will scatter, and return my attention to the papers before me. There's a third woman out there somewhere. She is not yet dead.

The papers go back into my briefcase. After tossing some money on the table, I leave the restaurant, crossing Pratt Street without waiting for the light to change.

***  
HOLIDAY INN INNER HARBOR  
12:36 PM 

The walk from the crime scene to the hotel was colder than I'd anticipated and the hotel lobby is pleasantly warm. The friendly woman at the welcome desk hands me my key card and I sprint up the steps in a bid to warm up. I enter the familiar confines of another bland hotel room, dumping the stack of files Skinner gave us on the small desk against the wall. Scully's got my clothes in the car.

She went to the ME's office with Detective Wickham, Charm City's Finest, and I make a mental note to pull a file on that guy. It has nothing to do with the way he looks at her. I like to know who I'm working with.

In any case, Scully will be tied up for hours. I remove my jacket and throw it on the bed, loosening my tie with irritated fingers. I cross the room to make a pot of bad coffee and hear the whine of a siren outside. The Holiday Inn is just a few blocks east of the Medical Examiner's office and the endless noise of Lombard Street provides a steady background hum below my window. I pull the curtains wide open to stare at the rain hitting the glass. I half expect to see the droplets clinging to it ascend like weightless crystal tears.

My world is all askew.

Something is amiss between Scully and me. It's not that she doesn't talk to me, because she does. And it's not like she's sulking or is angry because I would know if she were. But she keeps our verbal exchanges to a bare minimum, doesn't bounce my ideas back like she used to and ignores my jokes. Well, that last part isn't new - but previously I could at least see that she was deliberately choosing not to indulge my dubious sense of humor. Now she doesn't even seem to notice it.

It's as if some part of her has detached itself and flown away like a party balloon, ever since she came back to work yesterday and informed me with an indulgent, sad little smile that not everything is about me.

And now she won't even let me touch her.

I kick my shoes off and drop to the bed, tucking my hands behind my head as I try to focus. I really should not be thinking about my personal issues with my partner right now. I have a killer's mind to invade.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes, lifting my right hand, holding it high above me. I exhale slowly and step backward inside the dark corners of my head. Yes, I can feel it now, the weight of a knife - or is it a scalpel? - in my hand. I give a few experimental slashes in the air.

I cut their throats smoothly and efficiently. They died fast, in a hot spray of arterial blood. Did that matter? Did I let it rain over me, or did I kill them from behind?

They died fast, I think again. They don't matter to me while they're alive, because my work doesn't start until they're dead.

I took the time to remove their breasts carefully. Scully pointed out that the cut on the last victim looked neat and professional. I have done this before; maybe I'm a doctor...or a butcher. The flesh is soft and heavy under my hand as I slice. Do I like this? Do I like to see their blood escape them like a burst fruit? Is that an added bonus, or don't I really care? I can't remember that just yet. I know I have to reach their hearts. The hearts are important, that's why I keep them. I slice their breasts off and steal their hearts. Like they stole mine? Am I a spurned lover?

Why do I keep them?

I can't remember that either. I leave a message in the wood: "sinister". Am I passing judgment on myself or on these women? Do I know what I am and do it anyway? I know I'm not a vulgar thief, I also leave payment. Selenium beads. Why do I choose to leave these? It means something. Selene is a moon goddess.

Is this the connection?

Missing breast.

Missing heart.

The moon.

Women and the moon.

Women and their moods.

Lunar cycles.

Changes.

She's got a tattoo now.

Shit.

Focus, for God's sake.

The moon and the hearts.

She still won't tell me what it is.

Maybe it's a caduceus. Or some cryptic Equation. Not E=MC^2, too obvious. And I'm pretty sure it's not some lame tribal or Chinese symbol either.

The moon and the hearts.

Scully would go for something meaningful - well, the Scully I thought I knew would. Except that the Scully I thought I knew would never get a tattoo in a million years. She wouldn't have a one night stand either.

THE MOON AND THE HEARTS, DAMMIT!

I punch the mattress with both fists and release an exasperated sigh.

This isn't working.

I jump off the bed and open the window, letting in a rush of freezing air through the screen. The Bromo Seltzer tower rises from the corner like a rook, wrapped in a swirl of exhaust fumes and fog. Outside the sky is heavy and gray. The rain has stopped and it's still early in the afternoon. I glance at the desk, where the pile of documents and photos waits to be assembled into a coherent picture of our killer.

I sigh again and get ready for a shower, hoping the water will rinse away thoughts of Scully and put me in the right frame of mind to solve this puzzle.

***  
MARYLAND STATE MEDICAL EXAMINER'S OFFICE  
BALTIMORE, MD  
1:13 PM

The other pathologists are pretty much wrapped up for the day down here. I suit up in borrowed laboratory finery before pulling the woman's body out of the refrigerator. Wickham should be here shortly and I want to get started before he arrives.

I unzip the body bag and wince a bit at the gaping wound. The left breast has been sheared away entirely. I examine her hands for any defensive wounds or other evidence that may have been missed.

Her nails have been scraped clean of trace evidence, though not by the forensics team. I uncurl the fingers of her left hand and see where the nail polish has slopped a bit onto her cuticles. The right is much tidier; handedness being the bane of do-it-yourself manicures. So she's left-handed. Beyond this, her hands tell me nothing. These are the moments that humanize victims for me. Melissa was a leftie and always had to be strategically placed at dinner tables so she wouldn't bump someone's elbow.

I shake off the memory and return my attention to the victim's chest. I remove the jigsaw puzzle piece of bone and muscle that's been cut to allow to access to her heart. Cupped in the hollow between her lungs are a few dozen gunmetal-gray beads. Selenium.

"I hope I'm not interrupting," calls the voice of Detective Wickham.

Splendid. "I'm just getting started, Detective. You're welcome to watch."

"Agent Scully! We've only just met." He shrugs out of his overcoat and hangs it on the stool next to me.

I ignore him, knowing that any reaction will only be viewed as encouragement. "Take a seat. And hold this cup." I hand him a small plastic container and begin scooping the beads into it.

He watches them tumble into the bottom, clinking softly. "Like a goddamned pachinko machine," he remarks. "The Japanese love pachinko, you know. Maybe we're dealing with one of those obsessive Japanese collector guys. What are they called? Otaku? Some of them get into that hardcore hentai. Really bizarre S&M comics. Once saw one that involved a threesome with an octopus. You ever read hentai?"

I open Heike's lower abdomen and try not to think of some kind of pachinko machine torture fetish.

"I'm afraid I haven't. I'm hoping that I can find some evidence linking these beads to the killer. My reading on the way up here indicates that anode metal from electrolytic copper refineries is the primary source of selenium, and that the element has applications in glassblowing, photography, and several other fields."

"Talk nerdy to me, baby."

"You need to be mindful of your conduct, Detective Wickham," I say in a steely tone.

"Commanding. I like that. So what next, federal agent?"

His nonchalance is beyond irritating but I push it away for now.

"The report says you've been interviewing people in the fields I just mentioned, so you've either not come across him yet, or you have and he's not rattled by it."

"Your firm grasp of the obvious is dazzling."

I ignore the bait. "Any evidence regarding what he does with the breasts and the hearts?"

"None so far. Trophies I suppose. I imagine his freezer will be a treasure trove of both evidence and protein. Though you know Ed Gein liked to fashion little craft projects. I think he had a belt made of nipples. Maybe this guy's making throw pillows or something."

I run my finger over the cut edges of her ribs. "He knew what he was doing. Look how neat these cuts are. I think he used a Stryker saw. He has some experience with this. There's no evidence of hesitation marks on the skin or other tissue. It's a fluid motion."

"Admiring his work?"

His question is meant to put me on the defensive. It works, too, but my voice hardly ever bleeds my true feelings. Years spent working side by side with a profiler will teach you a thing or too about the need for obfuscation.

"Just taking notes," I lift my head up to look straight at him. "How did you get that scar, Detective Wickham?"

His smile is surprisingly gentle. "How did you get those bruises, Agent Scully?"

Primum non nocere, I remind myself. But the scalpel glints temptingly.

I turn my own Stryker saw on and remove the other half of the ribs that cover her thoracic cavity. Bone dust flies everywhere and it occurs to me that our killer's probably going to have traces of it all over the place.

I fill several vials with various bodily fluids and squeeze her gall bladder into a cup to collect the bile. I am aware of Wickham's eyes moving over me and I'm unsure if he's just being a cop, monitoring my actions, or if he's checking me out.

Probably both.

The red neon glow of the tattoo parlor fills my head. The needle pierces my skin - unbearable delicious sting - Ed's eyes are full of lust and I want, I need…

"Wanna go for a drink after this?"

I nearly drop the container I'm holding and turn around to stare at him. "I beg your pardon?"

Wickham stands up, smoothing the sides of his coat as he approaches me. "You, me, beer. We could exchange Tales of Two Cities."

"Are you asking me out, Detective?" I carefully place the vials onto a rack.

He leans against the counter and crosses his arms. "What if I am, Agent Scully?"

I don't even look at him as I load my samples into the dumbwaiter that goes to the lab and then return to the cadaver. I make an incision across the back of the head.

"I'd say you're way out of line."

"As far as I know, asking a pretty woman out is not against the law." He winks at me. "I should know. I *am* the law."

"I'm flattered but I'm not interested," I say, peeling away the front half of Heike's scalp. "Besides we're in the middle of a case."

"I see. Things seem to be off with you and Mr. Behavioral Analyst, but I wouldn't want to step on any toes."

I blink at him. "My partner? Let me assure you that my reasons for declining your offer are entirely my own."

"And those would be...?"

"None of your concern," I tell him firmly, turning the saw back on. The blade dips easily into the exposed bone.

"How long has this lover's spat been going on?"

I insert a skull key into the neat cut I made in the cranium and give a firm twist, hoping my contemptuous glare conveys my thoughts on Wickham's impertinence.

"It's fairly obvious. You two seem tense around one another," he says glibly.

Everyone's a pop psychologist.

"Thanks for your concern, but Mulder and I are fine." Wickham watches as I carefully pull Heike's brain out and set it into a pan. I reach in with a pair of tweezers and crack the sella turcica like a walnut, plucking out the pituitary gland and dropping it into a test tube. Push a little further with those tweezers and I'm right in the honeycomb of sinus cavities. Right where all those women had their tumors.

I take a deep breath and the thought recedes for now, but I can still feel it lurking at the corners of my consciousness.

I reach into the gaping chest cavity, working my hand upwards to free the tongue, and lift the large block of organs out of the body. I deposit them onto the stainless steel counter, snipping off bits to send to the lab.

"I don't know whether to throw up or be turned on," Wickam tells me as he walks over and leans against the wall. "Well, let me know if you change your mind," He sounds confident that I probably will.

I must confess to finding him attractive and strangely intriguing, but this is not the time. For so very many reasons.

"I'll keep you posted," I reply dismissively.

He grins and then looks concerned. I can feel something tickling my upper lip.

"Agent Scully...?" He rips off a sheet of paper towel and holds it out to me. I peel off my bloody gloves and accept it, trying to look casual - as though I am always plagued by mid-autopsy nosebleeds.

"It's nothing," I say, looking up and pinching my nose. "Happens to me in the winter." This winter, anyway.

"I have to say it would have been the most creative rejection I'd ever encountered. Why don't you head out anyway? Dr. Riviera is still here and he can finish up for you. I talked to Karen Chase, our joint lab manager, and she's going to have everything rush ordered, but can't promise anything before morning. Go get some rest because I don't want you dragging around tomorrow. You look exhausted."

"I'm okay," I tell him, pulling on fresh gloves and turning my attention to the dark slab of liver.

He nods slowly. "All right. Have it your way. Well, I'm going to look through the interview transcripts again, see if anything jumps out at me. If I hang around here I'll probably ask you out again and give you another nosebleed. Later, Madame Doctor." He heads out into the hall and I feel a rush of relief.

It doesn't take me long to finish up. I toss my bloodied cover-ups into the trash and hang the borrowed lab coat back where I found it. Only a few people are left downstairs. I take a solo ride in the elevator up to the lobby.

The air outside is raw and bone-chilling. A glum rain has begun to fall, but I've parked close and crank the heat up as soon as I start the car. The drive to the hotel is short, offering little time for thought, though Mulder, Wickham, and the ruined bodies of the dead women have all paraded through my head by the time I reach the front desk to get my key. I almost forget to ask where my partner's room is.

I load our luggage on a cart and take the elevator up to the seventh floor where I knock lightly at Mulder's door. He answers it in a hotel bathrobe, steam curling out from the bathroom behind him.

"Thanks," he says, pulling his bags off the rack. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to lounge around in this all night." I lean awkwardly against the doorframe while he hangs his garment bag in the closet. "Come on in, Scully," he says. "Tell me what you found."

I shrug. "Not much, really. I'm heading back to the ME tomorrow morning. They're supposed to have some results for me. Wickham's looking back over the interviews they've conducted, so you might want to give him a call and see what he turns up."

"Sure, thanks. You want to grab something to eat? Just let me get dressed and we'll order something up." He's pulling jeans out of his duffel bag.

I chew my lip. "No, I'm okay, Mulder. I had a sandwich not long ago. Not really hungry, but you go ahead. Let me know if you think of anything, okay? I'm two rooms down in 746."

He looks up and seems mildly surprised, but I pull the door shut and head down the hall before he can ask me anything else.

***  
HOLIDAY INN INNER HARBOR  
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22nd  
7:17 AM

I finish shaving and gulp down some scalding coffee before looking at the files again. The closeness of the room is making me anxious. I'm tingling like a lightning rod about to be struck. I really have to cut back on the caffeine.

Scully was distant again last night and I wasted more time thinking about her, wondering what the hell is going on under that glossy red hair. I want to go for a run this morning, to help clear my head, so I toss on some sweats and sneakers, then grab the orange that was left from my dinner last night. I stop by Scully's room before I leave, knocking at the door.

"Room service!" I say when she answers, offering her the fruit. Her hair is sleep-rumpled, her eyelids heavy.

"Hey," she says, accepting the orange and setting it on the counter. "Thanks."

"Heading for a run. You off to get those test results?"

She glances down at her pajamas. "Yeah, just have to shower first. Call if you need anything. I'm going to try and get a closer look at the cuts on her ribs. I want to see if I can narrow down the blade used to a particular manufacturer."

"Good luck," I say and she nods before shutting the door. I take the stairs down to the lobby and walk over to the map on the wall to plot out my route before heading outside.

Baltimore is a good sports town. Babe Ruth was born here and his childhood home's been turned into a museum. There's a Sports Legends museum too and even I teared up when Cal Ripken broke Gehrig's streak at Camden Yards in '95. Our hotel is situated right near these prime attractions. I'm hoping the change of scenery will do my brain some good. The wind smacks me in the face as soon as I open the lobby door.

After a brief warm-up, I kneel by a hot dog stand to tighten my shoe laces. Two guys waiting to be served are arguing loudly about the new football team. The Ravens just finished their first season in Memorial Stadium. I meant to catch a game, but DC belongs to the Redskins and I felt vaguely disloyal about it. 4-12. I didn't miss much anyway.

"You don't know what you're talking about, man. The Ravens are the shit. Football's back in Baltimore!"

"Still a stupid name. First Orioles, now Ravens. Birds suck."

"Your mother sucks."

"Whatever. I'm just saying that ravens aren't scary. Maybe vultures. They're kind of badass."

"It's from that poem! By that guy! That creepy dead motherfucker. You know the guy. They leave the whiskey and stuff on his grave. Aw, who's that guy?"

"Dr. Seuss?"

"Edgar Allan Poe," I offer.

"Yeah, him! He wrote all kinds of fucked up stuff and that Raven crap was freaky. I always forget that guy's name."

"Have you been quaffing any nepenthe?" I inquire.

"Are you a narc?"

I laugh and decide to incorporate old Edgar into my run. His grave's not far from here, so I can take a nice meander past my desired tourist attractions and still keep on the safe side of MLK Boulevard. I wonder if Scully's killed Detective Wickham yet. He does not fully appreciate what he's tangling with.

I start running and soon the rhythmic sound of my sneakers hitting the concrete helps me concentrate on the case again.

So, am I a hateful killer or a vengeful one? I follow a precise ritual and so far, I have not deviated from it. After I've killed them I leave - no, not leave, display - my victims - no, they're not victims, they had it coming, it was for the greater good, it was an honor to be chosen. Okay, so I display my trophies, my messages in the same place where I catch my next project. I display, I carve the word "sinister" in the wood and I take, and again - like a chain - a necklace? Is this why I leave beads in their chest? Am I doing this according to a geographical pattern? How many beads?

Must ask Scully.

Scully owns a pearl necklace and matching earrings. Sometimes, when she is deep in thoughts, she plays with one, head titled to one side - a study in Pre-Raphaelite stillness - who'll introduce you to the barrel of her gun if you startle her. Like the oyster where her pearls originated, she hides things from me; the surface of her shell has turned hard, jagged and uneven and I can't find a way to pry it open without damaging either of us.

I look down Penn Street towards the ME's office, wondering what she and Wickham are doing in there. What has she found on the dead woman? Scully with her keen eye and her cold blades. Scully with blood spilling down her white face over the fading ghosts of bruises.

I press the heel of my hand against my temple. Stop thinking about her. She's irrelevant to this.

I slit their throats. A nice clean cut. I do this casually, without rage; it is something that needs to be done. Do I feel that what I'm doing is sinister? Have I retained enough humanity to feel guilt about what I'm doing? Maybe, but it would seem that I have no other choice than to display my message until the work is complete.

I need the world to know.

What's the message?

I pause at a traffic light, jogging in place. I am nearing the cemetery. I slip back within myself to get a bird's eye view of the situation.

These women are all part of a whole. They are the compulsive re-enactment of some deep trauma, something that hurt the perpetrator so profoundly it sent him around the bend. Not many murderers will admit they enjoy killing. Luther Lee Boggs and John Lee Roche were among the few I've met who truly did.

Killers will often dissociate themselves from their crimes by saying voices in their heads made them do it, or blame some vague, irresistible urge. Something they can't control or fight. "This is not who I am!" they'll claim tearfully in court and there's always a neighbor around to say: "Such a nice man, I just don't get it!"

I follow Fayette Street and slow down to a brisk walk, staring up at the Gothic structure of Westminster Hall. All arched windows and time-worn brick, it sits incongruously between unimaginative modern buildings. Wrought iron and a low masonry wall come together to shelter its famed cemetery from loiterers.

The darkness that floats in the souls of men doesn't come to the surface if it knows it's being observed. People only let you see the side of them they've designed for you. There is no such thing as uncharacteristic; there is only previously unwitnessed.

If Ed Jerse hadn't been driven mad, I wouldn't have known about my partner's one night stand and fondness for inked needles. She would have come back - smooth and prim as ever in her sober suits and fuck me heels - and I would have been none the wiser.

What do I really know about Doctor Dana Scully?

First and foremost, Scully is her work. And she's well-known for it. The few times she's let me look over her shoulder at her inbox, I've seen the stack of queries she receives daily from students and other respected doctors.

She's a loyal, trustworthy workaholic who's compassionate and straight as an arrow. And she's saved my ass more times than I can count.

I know she's a fine shot and a fast driver. She's a health food nut, but I have seen the Ben & Jerry tubs in her freezer and she's got a weakness for spare ribs. She can be playful and sarcastic and her smile is dazzling.

I know she's stubborn, rigid in her beliefs, and capable of some impressive feats of righteous anger. I've seen her outstare Skinner and unsettle hardened criminals with the raise of an eyebrow. She can make you feel like you're not even worth being scraped off her shoe. I know she can be cold and so distant you might as well try touching the Orion belt. She has a hard time letting her weaknesses show, but her faith helps her cope with the horror we regularly witness. She goes silent when she's hurting.

I know she's hot. Yes, I have noticed. Just because we have a mutual unspoken agreement to keep things professional between us doesn't mean I can't enjoy the view. I'm tall, she's short and she doesn't button those silk blouses all the way to her throat. It's simple math. I've been known to rise to the occasion after having scientific jargon whispered in my ear. And I've caught her checking my ass out a couple of times. These things happen when you work with a partner of the opposite sex. It's no big deal.

I don't know much about her private life. I tease her about boyfriends and she teases me back about my video collection but that's as far as it goes. She dated her instructor at the Academy, so I figured she had a thing for older men. Her reactions to the Kindred case and Skinner's hooker were disdainful. After that I'd pegged her - maybe unfairly - as somewhat conservative in bed. But to be honest, my partner's sexual preferences are not something I had much pondered until Philadelphia. And the only reason I'm pondering them now is because the latest events upset my collected knowledge of her. Really, that's all it is. Professional pride. I like to know who I'm working with. So let's update her profile and be done with it:

Scully doesn't mind one-night stands.

She likes it rough.

She likes tattoos.

There, all done. Let's move on.

I peer over the fence at Edgar Alan Poe's grave. There's a raven in bas-relief on the gray stone and the famous 'nevermore' quote inscribed above it. I bend over with my hands on my knees to catch my breath and the sound of my heart drumming in my chest becomes louder in my ears.

The heart is important.

The heart reveals the truth.

I lift my eyes and stare at Poe's grave. The raven with its broken beak seems to mock me.

The Tell-Tale Heart.

A sinister tale of paranoia.

The beating heart.

Under the floorboards.

I get a flash of the latest victim, lying in the living room. A living room with pale reclaimed pine floorboards.

Could it be...?

I look once more at the raven before heading to the Medical Examiner's at full speed.

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore.

***  
MARYLAND STATE MEDICAL EXAMINER'S OFFICE  
9:28 AM

I refocus the microscope on the section of rib I've removed and then step back, rubbing my eyes.

"Dammit," I grumble without any real conviction. I wasn't expecting to find much, but it at least made me feel productive to try. The edge of the bone cut by the killer is identical to the end I cut with the saw down here. Stryker saws are available everywhere and it's going to be impossible to try and trace anyone that way. But at least the information will be useful if we find such a saw in the home of a suspect.

I turn off the microscope and check my watch again, hoping the lab work will be ready soon.

"Thought I might find you here. I come bearing caffeine."

I look up and see Wickham, who is carrying a large cup of coffee. "Daily Grind. Much better than the swill you had here, I'm sure."

I accept the cup gratefully and take a sip. "Mmm. Thank you."

He sits down next to me. "I went over those interviews again and nothing's coming up. Any word from Agent Mulder, profiling wunderkind?"

I shake my head. "Nothing yet. He's out for a run. He'll come through though."

"Feeling okay this morning?"

I shrug, uncomfortable. "Yeah. Just waiting for data to come back. It occurs to me that the killer may be a hunter. The women were fed venison, which isn't commonly sold in stores, and it would certainly explain his proficiency with a knife."

Wickham nods. "We'll cross-reference hunting licenses as well." Just as he finishes jotting down notes on his pad, Mulder appears in the doorway; hair, t-shirt and running pants soaked with rain or sweat. "I know where the hearts are," he tells us, out of breath.

"Speak of the devil," observes Wickham.

Mulder looks puzzled for a second and then walks over to us.

"I think he hid the hearts under the floorboards, Scully. All of the women were on hardwood floors. He scratched that word - sinister - above them and I think it was at least partly to hide pry-marks."

Years together and I will never figure out how he does this. "Why would he do such a thing?"

Mulder shakes his head. "I don't know yet. Maybe something to do with Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart. Did you find anything new on the body?"

"I don't think so. Her nails were scraped clean, but not by the forensics team. Our suspect probably has defensive wounds and he scraped the evidence from under her nails. He knows what he's doing, this guy. He has...proper tools. He's in control of himself."

Kaye Schilling hacked roughly to pieces and stuffed in an incinerator.

I have the creeping feeling that Mulder knows exactly what's running through my head. I blink away the thought.

"If you don't mind me interrupting, I'd like to go see if Agent Mulder's channeling our boy or not," Wickham interjects.

I nod and peel off my borrowed protective gear. "Sounds like a plan."

Wickham twirls his keys around his finger. "Let's go, honey. I've got a sweet '92 Crown Vic and the backseat is roomy."

"Oooh, I'm definitely sold," Mulder quips.

I roll my eyes, pulling my coat on in the elevator up to the lobby. We walk out to the car, where Wickham climbs into the driver's seat and I pause for a second between the passenger and back doors. Mulder jerks his head slightly to the front. I climb in, scooting my seat up as far as it will go to give him room.

"So I hear you guys do a lot of this type of work. Not just bogarting cases, I mean. Rumor has it you two are like the Hardy Boys of the FBI. If there's weirdness to be found, you stumble upon it," Wickham says.

"We have worked on a number of unusual cases," Mulder informs him flatly.

"Anything I'd hear about? What have you done lately?"

My nails are digging into my palm and I bite down on the inside of my cheek. How vindictive is Mulder feeling today?

"Just an illegal weapons and smuggling ring," Mulder answers. "Agent Scully handled it. I've been on vacation."

The yaw is slowly stabilizing, I think. We're coming back to center.

Wickham calls for a photographer and some techs to meet us at the scene. He turns down Eastern Avenue, then weaves through Fells Point until we pull up at April Larsen's building on Aliceanna.

Mulder unfolds himself from the backseat and I catch his eye for a second. He nods almost imperceptibly.

We head into her ground-floor apartment, ducking under the crime scene tape. Wickham looms like a sentry over the scratched floor until a photographer trails in with two techs whom I recognize from yesterday.

Wickham gets to his knees and presses his ear to the floor. "Lo!" he booms in an ominous voice. "It is the beating of her hideous heart."

I don't dare laugh, though someone snickers slightly. Jasper, who is tamely arrayed in a Nick Cave t-shirt.

The other one - Rick - begins prying up the floorboards while the camera clicks softly in the background. Mulder peers over the proceedings anxiously, watching as Wickham's gloved hand reaches around in the growing hole in the floor. He blinks in surprise and then pulls out a human heart.

"I'll be damned," he says to Mulder. "You spooky son of a bitch."

He passes the heart to me so I can examine it. "He tried to preserve it using some kind of resin or latex, though he may have needed to work fast because it's a pretty slapdash job and barely dry. We should be able to find a manufacturer, but it'll take time."

I turn the organ over in my hands and slip my finger into the superior vena cava, feeling around the right atrium. I look up in shock.

"This isn't her heart."

Mulder walks over. "What are you talking about?"

I poke around some more, making certain that I'm not missing it. "Heike Brandstatter had an artificial bileaflet tricuspid valve. She had to take warfarin - blood thinner - because of it. This isn't Heike's heart."

"It's the wrong fucking heart?" Wickham asks.

"That's some twisted shit right there," opines Rick.

Mulder's staring at the heart, utterly at a loss. Then something shifts in his face. "The victim before Heike. It's hers."

"What?"

He closes his eyes, tapping his chin. "He takes a woman and leaves the prior victim at the home. It's a chain. I think that's what he does with the hearts. He left Heike's body in April's apartment and the prior victim's heart below Heike. He's connecting them all. Who was the prior victim? Before Heike?"

"Carla Stewart," Wickham replies without hesitation.

"Okay. I think this is Carla Stewart's heart. And if we don't catch this guy, we'll find Heike's heart under April."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Wickham says grinly.

"And, of course, the million dollar question is, 'whose heart is going to be under Carla?' " Mulder points out.

Wickham's face falls. "There's another victim."

"One we haven't found," I finish for him.

"One we're not supposed to find," says Mulder, searching his pockets for his notepad.

Wickham pulls out his phone and calls the station, making arrangements to have Carla Stewart's house searched.

When I begin to examine the heart again, I see something glint on my finger. I look closer. Several tiny grains of what appear to be sand sparkle under the bright lights. I hold it out for inspection.

"Look at this. Some of the resin or latex or whatever it was is still tacky in there. This came off on my glove."

Rick whistles, looking impressed. "Damn, FBI."

Mulder and Wickham stare at my hand while the photographer takes pictures.

"Glassblowers," says Wickham. "Glassblowers use sand. And they use selenium to color the glass. We've been doing background checks on people who have ready access to selenium due to their professions, but we haven't been able to narrow our focus to one field. You know how many goddamned photographers there are in this town?"

"Glassblowers," Mulder repeats. "How many are in the area?"

Wickham is still fixed on the tiny particles. "In the metro area? About eight. But we're pretty sure the guy's right in the city based on his victims. There's only one glassworks in a twenty mile radius. Right off 83."

"You go ahead," I say to Mulder and Wickham. "I'm going to head back to the lab, see what I can find with this heart and try to get more information on these particles."

We leave the crime scene and head our separate ways.

***

I follow Wickham back out to the car and climb into the front, adjusting the seat from its Scully-height configuration.

"What is she, like five-six?" Wickham queries as we head towards to highway.

"Five-three. She wears deceptive shoes."

"Ah," he says, making a sharp left and nearly mowing down a cyclist in the process.

"How far is it?" I ask him.

"Fifteen minutes with traffic. So Agent Scully. She's single?"

Now we get to it. "To the best of my knowledge," I say. I don't feel as though I can speak about Scully in the absolutes of less than a week ago.

"To the best of your knowledge? Not partners with benefits then?"

I laugh. "Scully and me? No. We just don't talk much about our personal lives." Or body art. "Why? Did she shoot you down?"

He smirks. "That she did. She's a bit prickly, isn't she?"

"She's going through a rough patch," I say vaguely.

"Her injuries…?"

I shake my head. "You'll have to talk to her about that."

He gives me an appraising look, then exits onto Northern Parkway. "You help solve this case, Agent Mulder, and I'll get you seasons' tickets to Camden Yards."

"That's very generous of you Detective Wickham, but I think it's only fair to let you know I'm a Yankees fan."

Wickham looks disgusted, as I expected. "Well, how about this then? You help solve the case and I'll refrain from running you out of my fair city on a rail."

I grin. "Sounds like a deal."

We pull up in front of a low brick building surmounted by several chimneys, all of which are disgorging a dark smoke that blends in with the low, gunmetal sky.

"So what are we looking for?" Wickham asks me as we walk to the front door.

"I have no idea," I confess. "I'm hoping I'll know it when I see it."

"I hope so too. Time is running out," he says, holding the door open.

We walk inside and the noise is overwhelming. The roar of furnaces provides a base note, while the sound of hammering, clanking, yelling, and other unidentifiable noises makes a cacophonous layer on top of that.

A man in a heavy leather apron walks over to us. "Can I help you?" he asks loudly. "Oh! You're that detective. I remember you. Who's this guy?"

I flash my badge. "Special Agent Fox Mulder with the FBI. Mind if we have a look around?"

He examines my ID. "You trying to catch that crazy sonofabitch?"

"Yes sir, I am."

"Then make yourself at home. Ask around if you need anything."

I thank him, then take a loop around the room, watching the craftsmen at work. I am amazed by the way they take glowing blobs from the furnace, transforming them into sculpture. Glass flowers and animals and vases take shape in mere minutes, bold colors flowing through the glass as the artists puff, tap and spin the molten substance into the forms they've envisioned.

From the corner of my eye I see a glass cat taking form, its back rising and its face an angry hiss. Something tugs at my brain and I walk over to take a closer look.

"Wow," I say. "That's amazing, the detail you've got there. It looks very lifelike."

The man making it doesn't look up, but nods slightly. There are some snapshots of glass sculpture taped to his work area: a tall, creepy house where one might expect to find the Addams family, a raven, and black grandfather clock.

I feel a surge of electricity down my spine. Representations of Poe's work. The Black Cat, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Raven, and The Masque of the Red Death.

"Your work is extraordinary," I tell him. "Part of a series?"

He finally looks up. "Huh? Oh, yeah. Doing a display for the Poe Birthplace. They commissioned a set. I've just got a few more left."

"The Tell-Tale Heart?" I ask. "It's probably one of his most famous, after The Raven."

If this means anything to him, he hides it well. "Yup. Doing one for that. Pit and the Pendulum. A few others. I've got it all written down somewhere, with sketches and stuff. You a fan or something?"

"Somewhat. How about you?"

He shrugs and turns his attention back to the cat. "Sure, I guess."

I signal to Wickham and mouth: "Poe."

"That's a great cat," Wickham remarks as he strolls over.

The man looks suspicious now. "If you guys have something to say, just say it. I'm busy and I already talked to you people."

Wickham catches my eye and I shake my head slightly.

"No, we have no further questions. Just admiring your tribute to one of the city's favorite sons," Wickham reassures him.

The glassblower grunts and returns to his work.

We head back out to the car where Wickham wants to know what's up. "You want to tail this guy?"

"Yeah, I do. Let's find out when his shift ends and follow him. I don't want to bring him in yet or anything. If he won't tell us where he hid April we may never find her and she'll be just as dead as if he slit her throat."

Wickham nods and gets on the phone to delegate responsibility. He turns to me when he hangs up. "So what now?"

I sigh. "I don't know. What's this guy's background?"

Wickham closes his eyes for a moment, searching his memory. "James Alfred Montaldo. Served thirteen months of a two-year sentence for armed robbery. In and out for various scuffles, but nothing serious. Nothing particularly sadistic or noteworthy."

"Domestic violence? Rape?"

"Not that I recall, but we'll double check. I wish we had some goddamned prints to run from the scenes." He twirls his sunglasses by the earpiece and looks frustrated.

"Check his juvenile record too. And I want a warrant to search his place while we're waiting for him to leave work."

"Shouldn't be hard. I got a couple of favors I can call in," Wickham assures me.

"Excellent. We need to look for all properties in his name and any aliases. He's going to be working somewhere underground, probably the basement of a house. You want to look for a large refrigerator where he can store the bodies and some kind of table where he works on them. He'll want a back entrance out of the basement to carry them up and there will probably be an alley behind it too. And a van of some kind."

"I was thinking he might even have a meat locker down there. Agent Scully theorized that he could be a hunter."

I am impressed and tell Wickham as much. "The venison the victims had eaten coupled with the cold storage," I muse. "I didn't even think of that."

"You think he's keeping them where he kills them?"

"If not in his house, somewhere close by that only he knows about. He wants ready access to them. He doesn't torture them at all, but this is very much a control thing. He wants to be able to see the transition from whatever they represent when they're alive and what he turns them into. It's important to him."

Wickham regards me with interest. "You're good," he says simply.

"We'll see," I reply, and we head back downtown.


	3. Chapter 3

MARYLAND STATE MEDICAL EXAMINER'S OFFICE  
3:42 pm

 

Karen comes into the room with a stack of printouts in a cardboard box. "I've got some good stuff for you, Agent Scully. He attempted to preserve the heart using plastination, but gave himself nowhere near enough time. Soaked it in acetone and then dunked it in the liquid plastic. That can take months but he wanted to rush things."

"The women were killed about twenty-four hours before being found," I say. "That's barely enough time for the acetone. He bought himself a few extra days by switching the hearts, but still."

Karen shrugs. "Could have been longer. He was keeping them somewhere cold - fridge or something - and you know what that does to estimating time of death."

I think of Donnie Pfaster and shudder. Yes, I am intimately familiar with that MO. "You have a manufacturer for the plastic yet?"

"Blakefield United Chemicals. These are proprietary compounds so the manufacturers put markers in them to identify their products. I got one of Wickham's boys to start making some calls to track shipments."

"Thanks, Karen, this is great work. What about the little particles we found?"

"Exactly what you'd expect. Silica with a little limestone and potash. Also some fragments of glass with a very high index of refraction. Regular glass is about 1.5 and this stuff is 1.7. Lead crystal. It has a pretty unique makeup and if you can link any of this to a suspect, they're gonna have a hard time explaining it away."

I'm feeling a wash of hope. "Anything else on the saw marks or selenium?"

She shakes her head. "Non-specific on the selenium. It'll be circumstantial at best and any first year law student can talk their way out of it. But the glass was a good catch. And I'll let you know what I hear on the plastic and the cuts."

"Your efficiency is impressive. Ever planned to move to DC? I could put in a good word for you."

Karen laughs "No, not really, but thank you." She plays with the charms on her bracelet. "My dad was murdered in Druid Hill Park when I was twenty-two," she murmurs. "Just one of those things, you know? They never caught the guy. That's why I chose this job. The crime in this city is out of control."

"I'm sorry." I know all about loss, Karen.

The young woman smiles ruefully. "Guess you must meet quite a few people like me in your line of work, huh?"

"I'm afraid so."

"So you understand." She leaves me alone with a box full of puzzle pieces and a headache that is screaming like a demon behind my eyes.

***

"Knock knock," says Mulder. "How goes it, Quincy?" He sets a white paper bag down on the chair next to me.

I smile tiredly and glance at my watch, shocked that an hour has flown by so quickly. "Pretty good, actually. They're making everything about this case top priority, so I've got a big stack of data to go through. What about you?"

"Got a suspect," he says airily.

I almost drop the test tube I'm holding. "Are you serious? Mulder, that's incredible." I place my sample carefully in the rack in case he has any more bombshells to drop.

He shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not. Wickham fast-tracked a search warrant but we turned up a whole lot of nothing. And the guy's criminal history does not fit with my profile."

"Well, maybe he just never got caught for the right crimes." I open a new box of slide covers.

"Could be, he gets off work in an hour. Wickham and I are going to keep an eye on him, see where he goes. We had someone watching him at lunch time, but he just went to Burger King."

"So how'd you find him, Mulder?"

He grabs a piece of Parafilm, molding the clear, flexible plastic over his hand and pinching the edges to seal them. He starts drawing a cat on it with a ballpoint pen. "I saw him at the glassworks making Poe-themed stuff."

I shake my head in wonder. "Remind me never to try and commit a crime that might fall under your jurisdiction."

"You're saying you don't want me to handcuff you some time?"

"To what? Your couch?"

"We could go to your place. I seem to recall a slatted headboard."

"Mulder, the last time you were in my bed, you were drugged out of your mind. How do you even remember such a thing?"

My partner laughs, finishes his drawing, and tugs the Parafilm away. The image of the cat peels neatly from the back of his hand. "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream," he quotes.

He picks up the bag he brought in and hands it to me. "I know you haven't eaten anything. I got you a Cobb salad. Dressing on the side, easy on the bacon."

I open the bag and remove the foil tray. I can smell the grilled chicken and am surprised to discover that I'm ravenous. "Thanks, Mulder." I pry off the plastic lid and head over to the fridge to grab a bottle of water.

"No problem. Well, I'm gonna head out. Just wanted to see how you were coming along. I'll catch you later, Scully."

"Good luck," I say around a mouthful of lettuce, but he's already gone.

***

"Ahoy," I say as Wickham pulls up in a decrepit Lincoln Continental. "Nice land yacht you've got there."

"Please try to contain your jealousy. It's unbecoming," he scolds, unlocking the door. "We should blend in nicely. Mr. Montaldo, as you recall, does not travel in refined circles."

I settle back against the cracked leather seats, wondering if I should be wearing gold chains. "Onward, Jeeves."

We drive back to the glassworks and park the car behind a dumpster across the street, peering through our binoculars until Montaldo emerges from the building and gets into his old pickup.

We follow him at an easy distance. He stops to get some drive-through food, then meanders through questionable neighborhoods until he pulls up at his house. Our earlier search was extremely careful; his house looked like a tornado hit to begin with and we touched almost nothing. Between the two, he shouldn't be able to detect our presence.

We park across the street and watch him carry in the large bags of food.

"That's a load of food for one guy," remarks Wickham. "I mean, he's pretty big, but that is a hell of a lot of burgers for anybody."

"Indeed," I say. "But none of the victims' stomach contents have shown any fast food. Maybe he has a tapeworm."

We sit in the car for about twenty minutes before Montaldo emerges from the house carrying one of the bags along with a large flowered plate. He picks his way across the patchy lawn and goes to the house next door, ringing the bell once.

"What the hell?" wonders Wickham as he refocuses his binoculars.

The door is answered by a very old woman who stands up on her tiptoes to kiss Montaldo on the cheek before taking the bag and the plate. I roll down the window to hold the Bionic Ear amplifier out.

"…for helping us out, Jimmy," she says to him.

Montaldo shrugs. "No problem Mrs. Remmer," he replies. "And thanks for the cookies. I just want to make sure y'all are okay. I'm gonna get you some more groceries tomorrow, okay? Some fruit and stuff."

She pinches his cheek making him blush like a schoolgirl. "You're a good boy, Jimmy. You stay out of trouble."

"Yes ma'am," he says, lumbering back to his own house.

I shut off the amplifier, roll up the window, and turn to Wickham. "What is he, some kind of renegade Eagle Scout?"

Wickham shrugs. "You think they give out merit badges for grand theft auto?"

"Let's go ask Mrs. Remmer if he was staying out of trouble on Tuesday morning. Boss says he didn't work that day."

We get out of the car and head up the cement steps to her tiny porch. An assortment of wind chimes makes a tinny clanging sound as I brush against them.

"Hello?" she says from inside the door.

"Mrs. Remmer? My name is Jack Wickham with the Baltimore Police Department. I'd like to ask you a few questions if that's okay."

She pulls a lace curtain away from the window to peer out at us suspiciously, dark eyes shining like beetles in her dried-apple face. "Lemme see some identification," she orders.

We hold our badges up to the glass and she scrutinizes them for a moment, then opens the door. "Come on in then."

We enter her tidy little house, which is full of doilies and picture frames and shabby, but clean, furnishings. The air smells of lemon wood polish and tea. The phrase "neat as a pin" springs to mind.

"Go on and sit down," she says, gesturing at the couch. "What can I help you with?"

We sit. "We have some questions about your neighbor, Mr. Montaldo," I begin.

Her eyebrows shoot up her forehead. "He's a good boy," she says firmly.

"Yes ma'am," agrees Wickham. "I can see he helps you out a bit. Did you happen to see him any time between this past Monday night and Tuesday morning?"

She snorts. "Didn't you say you was a detective?"

It's our turn to look surprised. "Ma'am?" says Wickham.

"He took us to the hospital Monday night," she informs us.

"Us?"

"Me and Ashley. My granddaughter. She's having a baby." Mrs. Remmer looks down as she says this, picking at the buttons on her dress.

"Is Mr. Montaldo the father of her child?" I ask.

Mrs. Remmer looks scandalized. "Lord no! Ashley ain't but sixteen. Jimmy wouldn't do that." She shakes her head. "Ashley's been on bed rest for a month now and Monday afternoon she started having the pains and some bleeding and the doctor said we'd better bring her on in. We don't have a car but Jimmy does and he drove us down to Bon Secours and waited with us all night. He's a good boy."

"Is your granddaughter home now?" Wickham asks gently.

Mrs. Remmer nods. "She's upstairs. Sleeps a lot. I stay home with her and Jimmy has been helping out with groceries and carrying the trash and all the things Ashley did before she went and…" She bites her lip, shaking her head sadly.

"Thanks for your help, Mrs. Remmer," I say. "What's the name of the doctor Ashley saw? We'll just need to get his statement so we can put an official stamp on this."

"Cummings," she says. "Lady doctor."

We stand, thanking her for her time and wishing her well before leaving her cozy living room for the biting cold. The dismal rain of the afternoon has morphed into a fleecy snowfall, the tired row houses suddenly looking like a postcard picture in the halos cast by the streetlights.

"Shit," Wickham observes. "There's a chance he paid her off, but the story's too easy to corroborate."

"I think it's legit," I agree. Then I kick a car tire in frustration, brushing at the snow that has fallen inside my collar. "Dammit! I thought it was him." I imagine that I can hear April screaming. I have nothing to go on and no way to save her. My stomach clenches like a fist.

"You think he has an accomplice, maybe?" says Wickham, though his voice is doubtful.

I shake my head. "Tandem serial killers are exceedingly rare."

Wickham rubs his hands over his face. "Let's go see if they've turned up anything at the ME's office," he says tiredly. We climb back into the ridiculous car and slink down Howard Street like a beaten dog.

I call Scully to let her know we're on the way after Wickham confirms that Mrs. Remmer's story checks out.

"No luck?" Scully asks sympathetically, her voice crackling through the bad connection.

"Airtight alibi," I grunt. "You find anything?"

"It's hard to tell right now. We're trying to cross check shipments of the plastic from the heart with the selenium and some other glassmaking supplies, but nothing seems to be coming up. The plasticizing materials went to universities, hospitals and labs. We're making calls to see who has access to the materials, but it's slow going."

I sigh as Wickham turns onto Penn Street. "I thought I had him, Scully."

"Don't beat yourself up," she says quietly. "Any new theories?"

"I'm still wondering how he gets them in and out without any witnesses. You know, certain grimoires instruct practitioners of black magic to carry a heart under their right arm to cast a spell of invisibility. What if that's why he takes the hearts? He brings one in to make himself and the body invisible."

Scully coughs. "Well...that's a theory all right. But it still doesn't explain how he's getting them out."

Wickham throws me a sideways glance. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear any of this nonsense, Agent Mulder, so I can still respect you in the morning."

I shrug with indifference. Earning Wickham's respect doesn't rank high on my wish list, but prodding Scully back into her usual amused skepticism would certainly make up for the lackluster holiday season.

Scully's hair is bright against the pristine snow as we pull into the parking lot. "Give me some time," I reassure her. "Your ride is here." She waves and hangs up the phone.

Wickham and I get out of the car. "Wassup, baby?" I drawl, doing my overbred New England best to sound like I have street cred. "Damn girl, you look fine tonight."

She blinks in her Scully-like way, tightening her grip on the large cardboard box she's carrying. "Pardon?"

"Shit," says Wickham, draping his arm over the roof of our ghetto cruiser. "You must be tired, 'cause you've been running through my mind all night."

An embryonic smile is forming at the corners of Scully's mouth. She presses her lips together and stares up at the spiraling snow for a moment before turning her gaze back to us. "Nice car, boys. Did you beat up a struggling pimp and steal his ride?"

"Don't be a hater," I say, holding the back door open for her. She climbs in and sets her box on the seat next to her.

"Your pickup lines could use a little work," she informs us in a businesslike way as she buckles the seatbelt. "From me as a friend."

"If I were an enzyme, I'd be DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes," says Wickham as he turns onto Lombard.

Scully makes a muffled choking noise, like someone murdering a laugh.

"I've been saving that for the right scientist," he confesses.

"I assume I should be flattered," she snips.

Wickham grins in the rearview mirror then makes a right turn into the hotel garage. "Goodnight, Agents." he says as we get out of the car. ""We have all day tomorrow before he kills her. I'm not giving up just yet."

I manage a tight smile while Scully gets her box of files.

"Thanks for the ride," she says.

He waves before driving back out into the snow that has temporarily softened the hard edges of his city.

Scully and I walk into the lobby in silence. I am trying to adjust my profile according to the information about the hearts. I was right to think that these women have been linked together in death.

Why do I swap their hearts?

They're all the same - interchangeable organs - women all have the same heart - dead and cold -

"Mulder?"

"WHAT?"

Scully's eyes widen and her body instinctively presses itself against the wall. I realize that I just snapped at her without meaning to.

"The elevator's here, Mulder."

"Oh."

I walk in and press the button for the seventh floor before I notice Scully's already done it. I cast a quick apologetic look at my partner as the doors slide closed. "Sorry Scully, I didn't mean to - I was just... "

"...in his head," she finishes for me.

"Yeah."

"That's okay."

But in her eyes is the same concern I saw when my head was full of gargoyles and she caught a glimpse of what fills my mind when I do what I do. Probably not the best way to bridge the gap between us, but there's a case to solve.

"I'll order room service," I tell her. "What do you want?"

Her gaze shifts away from mine. "Nothing for me, Mulder. I think I'll go straight to bed."

"Scully…"

"I'm just tired," she says as the door opens.

Scully walks out into the hall and sets her box down, feeling around in her pocket for a moment, then pulling out her key card. She picks the box back up and I reach over to take the card from her. "Let me get that for you."

I follow her to unlock the door, opening it as she walks under my arm and sets her carton of paperwork down with a thump. "Thanks," she says, holding out her hand for the key.

As I drop it in her hand, I catch her wrist. "Wait."

She looks up at me questioningly. Her skin feels hot, her pulse fast under my fingertips.

"Talk to me, Scully."

She gently pulls her arm from my grasp. "Mulder, will you stop worrying? You're getting worse than my mother. I'm still healing and my energy levels are not quite back to normal. Which is why I'm pretty tired right now, but I assure you, that's all it is."

She pats my upper arm and smiles. "I'll see you tomorrow."

I watch her disappear in her room before heading for my own. She's probably right. After all, she's the doctor and being the consummate professional that she is, I believe she would pull herself off the case if she deemed herself unfit for the job.

Once in my room I strip down to my boxers, switch the TV on and sit on the bed, leaning against the headboard. I close my eyes, lift my hand and feel the weight of the blade again.

***  
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23rd  
8:17 AM

 

"...and that's why I think Edgar Allan Poe came back from beyond the grave to sacrifice young virgins so the Ravens could win the Super Bowl."

I push my sunglasses up my nose with a weary finger. "The victims weren't virgins, Mulder. And the Ravens aren't in the Super Bowl."

My partner's eyes leave the road quickly to cast me a quick smirk. I can see by the tension in his shoulders that he is not in the best of moods. "And finally we get some input from Dr. Scully. Here I was, thinking I'd been talking to myself all this time."

He's not wrong about that. I find it hard to concentrate this morning. The headache that is currently burning a hole right behind my optic nerve might have something to do with that.

"I'm sorry, Mulder. I guess I'm not quite awake yet."

The look I get this time is a worried one.

"Scully. Are you sure you're all right?"

"Will you stop asking me that?"

"I'll stop asking when you start acting like yourself again."

I straighten up in my seat and smooth my hands down over the crease of my trousers. "I am myself."

Mulder scoffs as he backs the car into a narrow space in front of the Baltimore Police headquarters. "Listen, Scully, this is how it works between you and me. I tell you my theory, you tell me I'm crazy, you tell me your theory and I tell you you're wrong. Then we put everything together, give it a good shake, and what falls out is pretty much what we need to crack the case open."

I can't help but smile. "That's nicely put, Mulder."

He turns the key in the ignition and pulls it out before shifting on his seat to face me, his eyes dark and serious "Yeah, except that, since we've arrived here, I've been telling you my theories and, well...I'm still waiting for the 'Mulder, you're crazy' part."

"I'm biding my time," I tease. "Besides, you've been right. Mostly anyway. The invisibility thing is...well, you know what I think about that."

"Don't be cute with me, Scully, I need you here to bounce ideas with me but I can't do that if you're going to shut me out every night like you've been doing these past two days."

I am not taking this well and I guess my voice must reflect that. "I'm not shutting you out, Mulder. I told you, I'm still recovering from what happened to me."

Mulder slams the steering wheel in frustration. "And what exactly happened to you, Scully, that is making you lock yourself in your room and avoid talking to me? Now that's something I'd like to know. Because I've seen you roughed up before and you've never been like this afterwards."

I open the door and step out of the car. "Mulder, you're not crazy, you're delusional."

"That's not an answer, Scully," he calls back, his long coat billowing around his ankles as he locks the doors. I head up to the entrance, hearing him follow close behind. As I enter the building and slow down to welcome the change of temperature, I suddenly feel Mulder's hand against my back. I hiss and jerk away from his touch.

Mulder grips my wrist, pulling me back roughly towards him. People are looking at us and I feel embarrassment tingle along my hairline.

"And what's up with that, huh? What did this Jerse do to you that you won't even let me touch you?"

"Mulder, not here," I plead in a whisper.

He blinks, suddenly aware that he is indeed making a scene in full view of the now fairly curious Baltimore Police staff as well as various members of the general public.

Including one very interested Detective Wickham.

He strides over like a game show host. "Who's Jerse?" he asks without preamble.

I'm contemplating the mechanics of ripping Mulder's tongue out through his chest with my bare hands when I realize Wickham actually expects an answer.

"He's nobody," I reply just as Mulder offers, "He's a suspect from the last case Agent Scully worked on." We do not look at each other.

"I see," says Wickham wryly. He cocks his head. "I'm trying to figure out which one of your answers is closer to the truth."

"They're both true," I snap.

"Oh good," he replies. "For a minute there I thought he might be the guy who beat the shit out of you. Guess that was someone else."

I am actually speechless and even Mulder looks stunned.

Wickham shrugs. "Anyway. I have a mound of paper tall enough to rival the Appalachian foothills and it requires our attention."

He lopes over to his desk and Mulder starts to follow until I grab his arm. He blinks in surprise.

"Listen, Mulder," I growl. "Tattoos hurt when they start to scab over, all right? So keep your hands off my back."

"So are you going to show it to me when it heals, or what?"

"Probably not."

"Those are decent odds."

We walk over to Wickham's desk and he hands us each a cardboard box full of beige folders.

"Agent Mulder, these individuals are either professional or hobbyist glassblowers and have immediate family members in the allied health fields. They also have some kind of violent criminal past. We've interviewed them all already, but I'd like you to see if any of them seem to fit your profile. Agent Scully, I have here some close-up photographs of injuries to both soft and hard tissue made by various implements used by hunters to butcher meat. See if any of it matches up to the pictures you took of the victim's wounds. We've checked already, but I always appreciate a fresh pair of eyes. I have a bank of people tracking plastic and selenium and lead crystal and just about anything else you can imagine. There are also three men we haven't been able to track down who all have past or current enrollment in glassblowing classes. I want those bases covered. Divide them up as you will."

I am impressed by his efficiency and take the box to an adjacent empty desk.

Wickham walks off to supervise other members of the task force and I glance at my watch. Time hangs over us like a guillotine and I pray for an eleventh hour reprieve.

***  
BALTIMORE POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
10:06 PM

 

"I know everything in the world about glassblowing," Mulder informs me, pushing a manila folder away from him on the wide conference table. "I'm thinking about quitting the FBI and sculpting precious little animals for old ladies. Also, I've pretty much turned up jack shit and have inhaled my yearly quota of patchouli," he grumbles. He balances on his chair to prop his feet up on the table. "Did you know that as you get closer to the art school, the probability of a glassblowing enthusiast also being a hippie approaches one?"

Mulder smirks as tucks his hands behind his head, and I think now is not the point to tell him that, once upon a time, my airy-fairy sister had some measure of fashion influence on me. It didn't last. I was never laid back enough to be a flower child. She would coo over skirts in pretty rainbow colors while I tried to guess the chemical makeup of the dye.

"You should write an article on that, Mulder," I tell him while stretching my arms gingerly above my head. "I myself have learned a great deal about butchering and hunting. Are you aware that over one hundred people are injured each year by attempting to field dress bucks that aren't quite dead?"

Mulder pulls off his tie and tosses it onto the chair next to me. "I was not. The world is a fascinating and stupid place."

Wickham comes over and perches on the edge of the table. "Hola, federales."

"I took German," I say. "No habla."

"Right. Well, let me spell this out for you in plain English then. We're up shit creek. I have spent all day talking to unhelpful people who have done nothing but aggravate me. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I hate glass and plastic and selenium and Edgar Allan Poe. You guys find anything?"

I shake my head. "I tracked down one of your three missing glassblowers. Julius Meltzer has been in Amsterdam for the past five weeks. No luck on Alibek Chalew or Elliot Dunham."

I kick my shoes off to rub my insteps, wishing I were tall enough to feel assertive in more sensible footwear. "Can we get a pizza?" I ask.

"No," says Mulder seriously, rocking his chair on the two back legs. "No pizza for you."

"Why not?" I demand.

"You know very well why not. You're a pain about the toppings and you bitch and moan about the amount of sauce and God help us all if the crust is too thick. Then you blot at the cheese and whine when there aren't enough napkins."

I glare at him while Wickham chuckles. "There's a good Chinese place on the next block," he offers.

"Chinese is okay," concedes Mulder. "She deems all Chinese takeout equally poor, so you get very few complaints."

"I'll go grab a menu," says Wickham, hopping up and rummaging through a cabinet on the wall.

"I hate you both," I inform them. "Intensely."

"Hate is just love disappointed," Mulder says loftily. "You're only mad because you know I'm right."

Wickham passes us each a worn-out, stained menu. I examine mine as though it might contain anything other than the usual suspects. We tell Wickham our selections and he calls the order in.

"Fifteen minutes," he says, peering into a bin full of miscellaneous paper goods and plastic utensils. "Chopsticks or forks?"

"Forks are for barbarians," I tell him. "Chinese food doesn't taste right unless you eat it with chopsticks."

"But they take longer," he says. "Waste of time."

I roll my eyes. "That's such a guy thing to say."

"Why?" Mulder chimes in. "Just because he believes a good fast fork will lead to more immediate satisfaction? There *are* women who feel that way too, you know."

I throw Mulder's tie at him as Wickham laughs.

***  
BALTIMORE POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
8:15 AM

 

I wake up in dire need of a shave, with a severely stiff neck and a crick in my back that feels like it goes down to my spine. I groan then stretch slowly, working out the kinks and knots.

"Morning, sunshine," says Wickham. "You'll be late for the bus."

"Mmmfff," I grumble, rubbing my hands over my face. I look up to see Scully enter the conference room, wearing an expression of benevolent pity.

"I know you miss your couch Mulder, but your near-pathological aversion to normal beds is beginning to worry me. Here, I brought you a toothbrush." She hands me a plastic bag.

"You sleep on a couch?" Wickham says incredulously.

"Most nights," I say, feeling stupid. "It's comfortable."

Wickham studies me for a moment before turning to Scully and then back to me. "I'd say that clears up any lingering doubts I had."

I avoid looking at either one of them by opening the bag Scully brought and extracting the toothbrush and travel size toothpaste.

Wickham turns back to Our Lady of Oral Hygiene. "You know," he confides, "I have a nice firm king-size. Pillow top."

Scully tosses her head, but I can see she's amused rather than irritated.

"Okay, kids," Wickham says, distributing packets of paperwork. "Poe Society members to check out and a few people who weren't reachable last time. Let's get going."

We take our files and none of us observes that wherever she is, April is quite likely dead.

***  
EASTERN AVENUE  
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24TH  
8:18 PM

 

I circle through Fells Point again, having driven around the city for what feels like the thousandth time. I pull up in front of 1621 Aliceanna, staring at the black eyes of April's darkened windows.

Where are you? I wonder, and who is the next link in the chain?

I fold my arms on the steering wheel and rest my head on them. A moment later, someone taps at my window. I bolt upright, hand at my gun.

It's Wickham.

"I'm armed and testy," I warn him. "Don't sneak up on me like that. What are you doing here, Wickham?"

"Same thing as you," he replies. "We're just going to have to wait."

I slam my fist against the console. "This is bullshit."

Wickham sighs. "Yeah. It is. And we're gonna be the fall guys. Where's Agent Scully?"

"Getting her geek on with a big pile of forensics data."

He looks thoughtful. "There's a decent bar just a few blocks from here. I intend to offer them my patronage. You free or do you plan to go get her geek off?"

"You're an asshole, Wickham," I say, but my heart's not in it.

"Surprisingly, I hear that a bit. I'm going to get in my car and you can just follow me. Too damned cold to walk."

He's only a few cars ahead and I follow him to a bar whose entrance is adorned with mollusks and a skeleton. "The Whistling Oyster?" I give him an eyebrow that would have made Scully proud.

"There's a place called The Bearded Clam in Ocean City," he informs me. We walk in and sit at the bar, where Wickham orders a Killian's. I second the motion.

"The thing is," he says while we wait for our drinks to arrive, "is that we don't even know what to look for. He's going to leave her somewhere, take a new victim, and we don't have the first clue how he chooses them."

The bartender passes us each a bottle and offers to start a tab; a suggestion we take. I decide to let the federal government foot the bill. I lift my bottle. "To...shit. I don't know."

"That'll do."

We drink in silence and then Wickham says, "They're making some headway on plastic shipments. Got a few leads they're following up on."

"Yeah? Anything stand out?"

He shrugs. "Not yet."

I sigh and finish my beer, signaling for another. The bartender brings over two more. "Women trouble?" she inquires.

"Something like that," I say vaguely.

"I'll keep 'em coming then." She saunters off for better conversation.

"Maybe Agent Scully will find something else," Wickham suggests. "She seems like a clever little minx."

I laugh a bit. "She's clever all right. But go easy on the minx talk. She has an itchy trigger finger." I tap my shoulder and Wickham's eyes go wide.

"She *shot* you?"

"Just to keep me in line. It was nothing personal."

He gives me an odd look. "How long have you been working together?"

"Four years."

"Some things always become personal when you're partnered with someone for that long."

"Speaking from experience?"

Wickham takes a sip of his beer, falsely casual. I detect an old wound. "Yes," he says.

"What happened to her? I assume it was a her?"

Wickham snorts a little. "Yes, very much a her. Little blonde pistol named Melinda." His eyes cloud with memories. "She hated her name, made everybody call her Jo."

I raise an eyebrow. "Jo?"

"As far from Melinda as you can go," he laughs. "Her mind worked like that."

"Past tense?"

Wickham reaches out for his next beer, trying to sound light. "Killed in the line of not even duty."

"When did that happen?"

"Three years ago. We'd been at Sabatino's celebrating a major meth lab bust and were fairly drunk. We got mugged on the way home." He points at his scarred cheek. "I was the lucky one."

Wickham takes another long drink from his new bottle and picks at the label with the edge of his thumbnail. I can feel his reluctance to pursue the subject, so I just sit quietly with my beer and the both of us stop talking for a while.

"So, uh…that stuff about the guy being invisible? You really believe that?" Wickham asks, another beer later.

I smile. "Ah, I've been waiting. You must know what Scully and I do. You said you did a little digging."

"I heard a lot of crap about UFOs. The FBI investigates aliens?"

"Technically? The FBI investigates reports of activities that may appear to mimic certain hallmark characteristics of so-called extraterrestrial encounters," I recite.

Wickham rolls his eyes. "Well, that didn't sound rehearsed. You believe in aliens too? Aliens and invisible serial killers?"

"Hold that thought." I ask for two shots of Patron. If ever there were a time for tequila shots, it's tonight.

"Cheers," says Wickham and we gulp the drinks down quickly. The bartender brings over another round of beers, though we're not quite finished with the remaining ones.

I can feel my head starting to hum pleasantly. I should drink more often. "I do believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life," I inform Wickham. "Invisible serial killers I gotta wait and see. Ha ha."

"So you and Scully go around investigating that kind of thing? She didn't really strike me as New Age-y, but appearances can be deceiving. I never would have pegged you as that kind of guy."

I laugh again. "New Age-y? I'm not exactly New Age-y. And Scully's definitely not. Her job is to write long reports detailing what an insane waste of space I am. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things scientific and she will rattle off enormous chunks of jargon at you until you just want to shake her." I smile at the thought of her babbling about glucocorticoids and scolexes and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We once had a heated discussion about whether Bactrian or dromedary camels are evolutionarily superior.

Wickham eats a handful of beer nuts. "I'm going to call her after this is all over, if that's all right with you."

I look up in surprise. "I'm not her father."

"No. But you're also not as disinterested in her as you pretend."

"It's complicated," I sigh. "But you should call her. She could use someone normal in her life. Relatively speaking."

"What does she do? Beyond her Queen of the Dead routine?"

I consider this. "I have no idea. She likes to go to the shooting range. She attends boring seminars. She's Catholic. Maybe you guys could take in a nice Mass or something."

Wickham looks concerned. "Doesn't she do anything fun?"

"Fun? Scully doesn't have fun. I mean, not like normal people." What I should have said is that Scully doesn't have fun with *me.* She has fun with violent psychotic tattooed men. And that didn't turn out very well. Maybe she and Wickham can go get something pierced.

"Does she go dancing?"

I try to imagine Scully dancing and fail horribly, because I can only envision her in a suit and heels with her Very Serious Hairdo. People do not wear things like that to go dancing.

"No clue. She used to have an obnoxious little dog. Maybe you can woo her that way."

He chuckles. "I think it might be a tad early for the puppy-buying stage."

"Well shit, Wickham. I don't know what to tell you. If I were trying to get into Scully's pants I'd bring her a shiny new microscope and a box of ammo because those are the only things that seem to make her happy." I finish my current beer and decide to stop because I am getting close to the degree of drunkenness where one begins to say things that will haunt one for a lifetime.

I make the universal gesture for "bring me the check, please," and when it arrives, I scribble something resembling my name on the receipt.

"I need to get more FBI assistance on my cases," Wickham remarks. "Save me some money."

"I'm-a hold you to those tickets."

"You don't drink much, do you?" he observes.

"'S'bad for my girlish figure."

He laughs and then pulls out his phone. "Well, we're both kind of fucked up. I'm gonna call for a cab. I'll have someone bring your car over to the hotel later." He walks to the door and pulls it open, a whirlwind of snow flurries rushing in.

I nod. "Okay. Hey, Wickham?"

"Yeah?"

"Scully likes cello music."

He grins and I toss him my car keys.

***  
HOLIDAY INN INNER HARBOR  
11:40 PM

 

The cab driver stopped at a liquor store on the way back to the hotel and I overpay him before oozing from the car to the curb by the hotel. The cold slaps me like a B-movie starlet as I lean against a pillar in the freezing air.

Once my motor functions have rallied back to a semblance of organization, I stumble though the lobby and into the elevator, which disgorges me at the seventh floor. I walk to 746 and knock loudly.

"You should come have a drink with me, Scully," I slur as she opens her door.

Scully crosses her arms and gives me a disdainful once-over. "You don't look like you need a drink, Mulder. You need some sleep." She leans towards me and sniffs. "And a shower," she adds. "You smell like a bar."

"Wickham took me to the Whistling Oyster."

"Strip club?"

"I'm wounded, really. Is that what you think of me?"

She pats my shoulder. "No. Good night."

She begins to push the door shut but I catch it with my hand. "What, no good night kiss?"

She surprises me by grinning slightly. "You haven't bought me dinner yet."

"I was *trying* to buy you a drink," I remind her.

She rests her head on the doorframe. "You're drunk, Mulder. You're drunk and we have a hideous day ahead of us. Besides which, I'm ready for bed and I don't really feel like getting dressed again just so I can go have a drink I don't need and have to babysit you for good measure."

She's caving or she wouldn't have given an excuse for not wanting to come out with me. I straighten out a bit. Scully needs a reasonable argument for everything, so I give her one.

"You're not gonna sleep tonight, Scully. None of us are." I hold up a brown paper bag, dangling it before her eyes like Mesmer. "No dress code at my place. Come on, live a little."

She watches the bag, then gives me a long look and sighs. "Let me get my robe."

***

I am lying down on the bed, head propped up on one hand, and dozily listening to the wondrous tales of Dana Scully MD, Terror of Quantico. She points an inebriated finger at me.

"I said it was probably arsenic poisoning and someone burned the body to hide it. And he said there was no way to prove it and I had to drop it. So, I told him -" she looks at her empty glass and reaches out for the bottle "- so I told him...what did I tell him Mulder?"

"Your story, Scully," I remind her, handing the bottle over.

She fills her glass and looks in it with a pitiful pout. "I forgot how it ends."

Scully takes a healthy swig. I know I should stop her, but I'm not really sober myself; my muscles have the slow, confused feeling they get when I end up in the hospital pumped full of Dilaudid. I let my head fall on the bed and turn onto my back. Her voice drifts into my foggy brain. "Give me your clothes, Mulder."

Okay. Now I'm wide awake. I raise myself on both elbows and look dumbstruck as Scully stands up somewhat unsteadily and begins untying the knot of her bathrobe. It falls in a terry cloth heap at her feet. "I want to lie down but my pajamas will make me slide off the bed." She explains seriously.

"Scully?"

"It's polyester and I'm in satin and the standard friction equation dictates that um...slippery." She starts rooting through the larger of my duffel bags. "I need to borrow something cotton."

I lack the energy and sobriety required to argue her logic right now, so I just close my eyes and let myself fall back on the bed. Scully wanders past me to the bathroom, clutching a wad of fabric in her hand. I feel myself drifting to sleep as she makes rambling conversation from around the corner.

Some time later I feel the bed shift. I struggle to pry open my heavy eyelids and find myself staring at Scully, who is poured over the bed like a cat. She is wearing a pair of my shorts and my Red Stripe t-shirt, her hair in a ponytail. She looks about nineteen.

"Hey," she says. "See? I'm not sliding or anything."

I turn to look at her and then press my palms against my eyes. "Scully, go to your own room and go to sleep. It's late and you're right. Long day tomorrow."

Scully gives me an accusing look. "You ply me with liquor then kick me out when I hop into bed with you? Gee, Mulder. No wonder you don't get more dates."

"You're drunk, Scully."

"A Scully is never drunk," she informs me indignantly.

"Family lore?"

"Family law. You want me to refill your glass?"

"No, I don't. But thank you." My head aches and the outlines of the room are still fuzzy, but I'm stone-cold sober next to my partner and one of us has to be responsible.

Scully flops back on the bed and pouts. She stretches her arms upwards, causing the t-shirt ride up her torso as she winces. Purple and green bruises bloom like violets on her white skin and I look away, queasy.

"Where's Detective Wickham?" she asks. "You didn't invite him to your little after-party?"

"Wouldn't you have liked that," I say dryly.

"He's an interesting man."

"Is he?"

"Well you should know, you've been hanging out with him more than I have." She sounds slightly defensive.

"Hanging out? He's trying to get advice on how to pick you up, Scully."

"Really? And you've been helping him with this? I'm intrigued." Sarcasm laces every word.

"Intrigued? Does this mean you're interested?"

"I might be."

I look at her again, suddenly irritated by her boozy voice and her bare midriff and my shorts rolled provocatively around her hips. I want her to leave so I can sit in the dark and dream of monsters without worrying about her bruises and her nosebleeds and the way her breasts move under my shirt when she appears not to have a bra on.

"Detective Wickham, huh?" I reply. "Looking for another notch in your headboard, Scully? Is that what you do now, when you don't feel like dealing with a case? Have a few drinks and go screw some poor bastard?" I feel mean and enjoy it somewhat.

She sits up slowly, flinching as she does, and I'm glad when the shirt drops back down to cover her narrow waist. "You're one to talk," she spits.

That is not the reply I expected and, against my better judgment, I ask her what she's talking about.

"You had an HIV test right after I was returned from my abduction," she says, watching me intently. "And another one three months later."

I swallow hard, having been caught violating the Eleventh Commandment. Thou shalt not attempt to hide things from thy personal physician.

Scully leans closer to me and pulls at my tie, which I have only just realized is draped around my neck. "You know what I think?" she asks in a low, throaty way. "I think that I was your sister all over again when he took me. I was another lost girl for you to find. And I think you went out and slept with some woman who looked nothing like me, because what would that make you if she were short and redheaded when some part of you saw me as an eight year old girl from Chilmark?"

Damn you, I think. This is my trick. You play with your knives and saws and I figure out what goes on in people's heads. But that's classic Scully, isn't it? She absorbs everything. I still don't reply, wanting to know what she'll say next.

"I think she was tall. 5'8, maybe? Above 5'6, anyway. Long hair. Probably blonde, but maybe dark." She cocks her head and looks at me, squinting. "Yeah, dark. Phoebe had dark hair. I don't think you go for blondes." She takes a gulp of her drink. "Writer, maybe. Or an art student."

"Accomplice to murder," I say. "Killed herself."

Scully laughs humorlessly. "I knew you had no room to talk. We're too much alike that way, Mulder, for you to really be mad at me."

I take the cup from her hand and empty the remains of it in one long swallow. And my righteous indignation, floating so exultantly only a moment ago, crashes and flames like the Hindenburg.

Oh, the humanity.

Scully stretches out on the bed again, tendrils of hair curling across her concrete face like rust stains. "They're going to find her tomorrow morning," she mumbles. "And he'll have taken someone else and he's going to kill her too." Her voice is still slushy, distorting the vowels and blurring the hard edges of the plosives.

I stretch out on my side and prop my head up with my left hand, looking down at her, wondering if anyone could ever really break her. "No, he's not, Scully. We'll find him now. It'll just take a few more days, but we'll get him in time to stop this one."

"April never had a chance," she remarks to the ceiling.

"No," I agree. "Not really."

Scully rolls onto her side, groaning softly, and then swings her feet over the edge of the bed. She stands shakily, steadying herself before walking around to the other side of the bed. Her back is to me as she pulls the shirt up some. A serpent curls just above the waistband of the shorts, chasing itself in an endless loop as it bites its own tail. An Ouroboros if I'm not mistaken. I could have guessed for a hundred years and never come up with a snake. Scully, unlike Eve, is not the type to blame others when she tastes forbidden fruit, so I wonder what the snake hissed to her when she elected to have it emblazoned on her body.

"Well?" she demands.

I lean closer and she arches slightly away from me when my breath hits her back. The area around the tattoo looks raw and sunburned, but the colors of the ink are vivid and jewel-bright against the otherwise pale canvas of her skin. I want very much to trace it with my finger, but I don't.

"I can't believe you got a tattoo," I say, memorizing every millimeter of it. "But it looks good." I'm close enough to feel the heat rising from her against my cheek. I let my eyes slide shut as I breathe her in.

Scully drops the shirt back down, laughing. A real laugh this time. "Neither can I, actually." She meanders over to the sink where she folds up a washcloth, wetting it before wiping her face. I get up to go into the bathroom, finding a dry hand towel and passing it to her. Then I scoop up her discarded clothes and set them on the counter.

"So does Wickham get to see it, too?" I query.

That earns me a Look. "Mulder," she says testily, patting her face dry.

"No, I'm serious. You were right; he's an interesting guy and he really seems to like you."

Scully shakes her head and gathers the heap of her belongings. "I was kidding. He's not my type." She shuffles to the entryway, tripping a little, and I catch her elbow before she bumps into the wall.

"Watch the fancy footwork there, Ginger Rogers. And what's wrong with Wickham?" I figure if Scully's destined to end up with someone in law enforcement, Wickham's light years beyond a dickhead like Jack Willis.

She starts to open the door, then stops, turning back to face me. "Sometimes I wonder if you're really any good at reading people at all," she says, stepping close enough for me to smell my own cologne on the shirt she's wearing. Close enough for her hair to brush my chin.

She drops the bundle in her hands to the floor.

Step back away from her, close the door and head straight for that shower, says my higher brain to the lower. Make it a nice cold one if you have to. Do not think, do not pass go, do not further contemplate what her mouth would feel like against yours.

Shut up, I order it as Scully moves her hands up my chest and presses her cool fingers to my face. She stretches upwards and kisses me, her mouth sweet under the dangerous varnish taste of the vodka. "That's what's wrong with Wickham," she whispers against my lips.

I tug the rubber band free from her ponytail, her hair tumbling down over my hand. I twist my fingers through it, pulling her closer and sliding my other hand under the t-shirt. Her back is slender and warm to the touch and I keep well north of the tattoo, thereby confirming that she is indeed braless. I let go of her hair and cup her face in my hand, admiring the feel of her rose-petal skin and the lean tendons of her neck. Her tongue slides against mine and she nips my lower lip. I am fighting very hard not to lift her up and carry her back to the bed because I really don't want to break her ribs.

And then the synapses connect and I realize that I am kissing Scully while we are both somewhat drunk, on a case, and waiting with morbid curiosity to see where the latest mutilated corpse will show up. I think the same circuit must have just been completed in her brain because she pulls away. Somewhat reluctantly, I like to think.

She looks up at me and I wonder if the flush on her cheeks is embarrassment or desire.

"Mulder," she says, in a voice like raw silk.

Desire, definitely. I feel like a god.

"Scully," I murmur, not sure of what comes next. She plays with the end of my tie while I will my blood to diffuse back to its normal course through my body.

"You're such an idiot," she says kindly, finally letting go of my tie and picking her things up off the floor. She opens the door and walks out into the hallway. "G'night."

"See you in the morning." I slouch against the doorframe and watch her head into her own room, trying to decide if I'm an idiot for wanting her to stay or for letting her go.


	4. Chapter 4

3825 KESWICK ROAD  
SATURDAY, JANUARY 25TH  
9:22 AM

 

Mulder pushes through the crowd of reporters, microphones shoved in our faces as a barrage of questions assaults us from all sides. I follow just behind him, taking advantage of his height for the moment.

"Agent Mulder! Have you got a profile of the suspect yet?"

"Agent Mulder, is this anything like the Monty Props case?"

"Agent Scully! Tell us about the hearts!"

"Is there anything you'd like to say to the victims' families?"

We finally make it to the house, the row of grim-faced policemen who let us through jostling to keep the vultures at bay. One of the officers kicks the door shut behind us with his boot.

"Jesus," Mulder breathes, slumping against the wall.

"You can say his name again, and then maybe add Jehovah, Allah and the entire Greek, Roman and Egyptian Pantheons," Wickham growls as he approaches us with heavy steps. "Because barring divine intervention, we're royally fucked right now." He eyes us up and down. "And you two look like shit."

I pinch the bridge of my nose as another headache swells to a crescendo behind my sinuses. Last night's alcohol intake did not help, to say nothing of my drunken advances towards my partner.

"Where is she?" Mulder asks sullenly.

"This way." We follow Wickham down the hall to the body of April Larsen, lying like a broken puppet on the wooden floor, her mahogany skin ashen and drained, thanks to the long gash across her throat. The blood on her chest is clotted like raspberry jam. Wickham taps his watch then holds up five fingers at the few plain clothes cops milling around in the room. They nod at the detective and leave us with the forensics team.

"We found Heike's heart under the floorboards, just as you predicted. Still going through missing persons reports to try and find out whose heart was under Carla Stewart. No luck so far."

"No talking ravens yet," Rick informs us.

"Would you like a shot of amontillado?" offers Jasper. "Hair of the dog."

Wickham glares at them and they wander off to peer out the window at the reporters.

Mulder crouches next to the body and bounces on his toes, head in his hands. "What the hell am I missing?" he mutters to the dead woman.

I turn my attention to Wickham. The scar on his face stands out like lightning against his livid skin and there is a muscle twitching relentlessly along his jaw. He looks bone tired and defeated.

I take a few steps towards him and lay a concerned hand over his forearm. "Are you all right, Detective?"

He looks down at my hand and some of his old self seems to slip back in momentarily. He lifts his eyes to catch mine and asks with a weary yet teasing smile. "So someone has to die for you to be nice to me, is that how it works?"

I squeeze his arm before letting go. "Yes, Detective, that is exactly how it works."

"What would the body count have to be for you to be *very* nice to me?"

I raise an eyebrow and pretend I'm sizing him up. "Waterloo, at least."

"I have friends in the military. I could bomb Switzerland for you."

"Why Switzerland?"

"Why not?"

I shake my head, smiling. "You're impossible."

He leans down to whisper by my ear. "But you like it."

I click my tongue against my palate and roll my eyes at the ceiling before going back by Mulder's side. I slip on a pair of latex gloves.

Mulder gets to his feet, shaking his head. "I got nothing. I'm not even sure if the case is related to Poe anymore. Something just doesn't add up."

"Then we'll start from scratch until it does." Wickham asserts before leaving us to go in the next room to talk to one of his tech guys.

I kneel down to inspect a dark smudge on April Larsen's cold hand. "She's left-handed too," I point out.

Mulder turns back to the floor. "What did you say?"

"Left-handed. See? She's got ink-stains all over her left hand but none on her right."

He looks impatient. "Yes, I see that. It's the 'too' that's got me confused."

I stand up, taking my gloves off with a snap. "Heike was left-handed. I noticed it when I was doing the autopsy."

"And you failed to share that piece of information with me because...?" His voice has turned cutting. I realize that my friend and partner - the man I kissed last night - is gone. Instead I have to deal with the insensitive prick who bosses me around and accuses me of refusing assignments.

"Because a lot of people are left handed, Mulder. It didn't seem relevant."

Mulder makes a little frustrated dance, pacing aimlessly, and slapping his thighs a few times. It would be funny if the growing certainty that I might have seriously screwed up hadn't started to solidify my insides like a hard shell of cooling lead.

"It didn't seem relevant?" He repeats what I just said under his breath one more time, obviously having a difficult time believing what he's hearing. "Listen to me, Scully, I'm the fucking profiler in this partnership. *I* decide what's relevant! I don't know what's wrong with you lately, but if you're not going to talk to me about it, you'd better get the hell over it because it's affecting your work."

I bristle. "So not only do you expect me to report on every detail of my personal life, you don't trust my judgment now?"

"Your judgment may have cost someone her life." He takes me by the shoulders none too gently and turns me towards the corpse. "Go ahead, say that to her."

His fingers are digging like claws against my clavicles.

"Mulder, you're hurting me."

"I hope so, since it seems to be the only way to get your attention these days." He's speaking sotto voce but there is no mistaking the anger in his voice.

I go very still. "Mulder. Enough."

"What's going on?" Wickham's voice asks behind us. Mulder jerks away from me.

I lift a hand to rub my shoulder, staring at April Larsen, mostly to avoid looking at the two men behind me. The tension between Mulder and me is so sharp you could poke someone's eye out with it.

"We need to find out if Carla Stewart was left-handed too. And the woman taken today," Mulder tells Wickham.

"Cecilia Forgie. We'll get someone on it ASAP. You really think this has something to do with the case?" he asks.

"Heike Brandstatter was a leftie as well."

"Only about 10-12% of the population is left-handed. That's not likely to be a coincidence," Wickham agrees.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Mulder nod grimly.

"I'll find that out for you," Wickham says, digging out his phone. He's about to hit the speed dial when he pauses. "How come this hasn't been mentioned before?"

"Good question," Mulder snarls. He goes to the living room window and lifts a curtain to see if the news crews are still waiting outside.

Wickham raises his eyebrows at me. "Agent Scully? Care to tell me what the hell is going on?" He crosses his arms. "I expect an answer this time."

I glare at him. "Maybe you should go find out why none of your people picked up on it either, instead of playing Bad Cop/Condescending Cop with your new drinking buddy."

Wickham returns my icy stare. "Oh, that's convenient. You get called in here because the assumption is that we can't find our asses with both hands and when you screw up, you try and cover it with *our* incompetence?"

"Is this some of Mulder's dating advice? Because whatever he may have told you, I can tell the difference between flirting and being insulted."

Something shuts down behind his eyes and he abruptly gestures for me to follow him. "Agent Mulder," he calls out. "Don't bother with the front door; the reporters are worse than starving ticks on a fat dog. You two can leave through the back door in the kitchen."

Mulder drops the curtain and joins us, irritation still emanating from him in waves.

Once in the kitchen, Wickham kicks a bag of cat litter out of the way and opens the door. "There's a gate in the backyard, and a path that leads behind the block. I'll tell Rick to go around and pick you up." The winter sun is bright and hurts my eyes. I pull out my sunglasses and am about to put them on when the detective reaches out and lowers my hand. He gazes evenly at us both, his voice quiet and precise.

And angry.

"Now, listen to me very carefully. You two clearly have some personal problems that are interfering with your focus on this case. So here's what you're going to do: you're going to drive to your hotel and fight or fuck or snort an eight ball of blow - whatever you do to get functional - and then we're going to find this guy. You come back here with a game face or you go home. Do you understand me?"

"Look - " Mulder begins.

"No." Wickham's voice cuts, his tone final as an executioner's axe. He moves out of the way to let us go through the door. "I don't need to hear anything from either of you right now. This offer is final and non-negotiable."

Mulder storms out without any further comment. I step outside, slipping my sunglasses on and wondering if my carelessness cost April Larsen her life.

I follow Mulder across the yard and watch him open the little wooden gate that leads to a shady path meandering between houses. He does not wait for me, seeming eager to put as much distance between us as possible. I can hear the ice crunching under his soles.

"Mulder! Wait."

He ignores me and I quicken my pace, trotting to catch up with him -every step resonating in my teeth and sending waves of white heat inside my head.

I try again. "Mulder. Can we talk about this?"

My partner stops abruptly and turns around to shoot me an incredulous stare, his breath coming in short white plumes. His eyes are cold as the frost I see glittering on the leaves edging the path.

"Oh, you want to talk now?" he spits from between clenched teeth.

I slow down, approaching him cautiously. "I made a mistake." I stop in front of him and remove my sunglasses. "I made a mistake and I'm sorry."

Mulder seems to deflate a little at this, his shoulders sagging. "We don't know how pertinent this detail is to the case anyway. It might not be relevant." He shoves his hands in his pockets and worries a chunk of ice with the edge of his shoe.

"But you think it is. I know you, Mulder. You wouldn't lose your temper like this if you didn't think it was important."

He shrugs and says nothing. I shred some evergreen needles, the scent of pine rising in the frosty air. "I'm trying to find a valid reason for not telling you that both victims were left handed earlier. And you know what Mulder? I can't find one." I brush my gloves off and look up at him. "Maybe I did come back in the field too early."

He snaps a few dry twigs off an overhanging branch. "That's what I think. You should have stayed back in DC and taken more time to recover. I didn't insist because I wanted you here with me."

I lift an eyebrow at this. "You wanted me at arm's reach to keep an eye on me, is that it?"

He takes a few steps towards me and reaches out to touch the bump on my forehead. "I just didn't want anything else to happen to you."

My lips curve a little at this "Are you sure this is what this is about, Mulder? Keeping me safe from harm?"

He turns away from me, resuming his walk towards the road. "What else would it be about?"

I give him a look which makes it very clear that I'm not fooled for a minute by his aloofness. I'm about to voice this in no uncertain terms when Rick's voice stops me in my tracks. "Good morning, Miss Daisy."

A police car is parked by the curb. Rick is outside waiting for us while eating a donut, his hat pulled down all the way to his brow. Mulder opens the door and holds it open for me, and we climb in as Ricks wipes his fingers on his ski jacket before getting back behind the wheel.

"I'll drop you as close as I can to your car and you can make a run for it. The good thing about the press is that all the gear weighs the bastards down, so you should have plenty of time to get in your ride and get the hell out of Dodge."

"Thanks Rick," Mulder says.

"Don't mention it." He stretches an arm across the back seat as he maneuvers the car back onto the street, displaying an Egyptian cartouche tattoo on his wrist. Eye, feather, bowl.

"That's an interesting tattoo, Rick. What's it say?" I ask.

"R-I-K," he says sheepishly. "Jasper and I had them done when we went to Cairo with Ron Wade."

"Ron Wade? Really? I've followed his work for years. I'm impressed," I say.

"Some days I think I'm the only one who isn't inked," Mulder muses.

I shoot him a dirty look as the car stops at a red light.

Rick frowns in the rearview mirror. "I don't know what you two did, but Jack sure was pissed off. It took Jasper a half a box of donuts to get him settled," Rick says.

"We disagreed on baseball." Mulder tells him, his tone indicating that Rick would be wise not to inquire further.

***  
MARYLAND STATE MEDICAL EXAMINER'S OFFICE  
BALTIMORE, MD  
8:22 PM

I hear the muffled ring of my phone from my coat pocket and fish it out while Karen takes a turn at the microscope.

"Scully."

"Your phone manners need work," Wickham informs me. "Emily Post advises one to say hello."

"I really don't think you're one to lecture me on social niceties," I snap. "I have a sneaking suspicion Emily Post wouldn't think much of your conflict resolution strategy." I notice Karen trying very hard to look like she isn't eavesdropping.

Wickham sighs. I can imagine him rubbing his neck as he talks. "Can we call a truce, Agent Scully? I'd like you to meet me in a little while because I have something to show you about the victims."

I glance at Karen and then at my watch. "I can be at the station in half an hour. We're just checking out some tissue samples, but we're nearly finished."

"Don't come to the station," Wickham says. "Most of the Baltimore Sun staff is still lurking in the bushes, though I think the reporters from out of town are holed up at their hotels for now. But I bet your hair shows up nicely for a telephoto lens."

"Out with it, Wickham. What have you got in mind? If this is a clever ploy to end up in my hotel room, I can tell you right now it won't work."

He laughs. "So paranoid. Meet me at the Whistling Oyster in an hour."

"That's where you took Mulder. Your favorite hangout?"

"No. I just like saying the name."

What harm can there be in it? "I'll get directions from Karen. See you then." I hang up the phone.

Karen looks at me. "You have a date with Jack Wickham?"

I sit next to her and hope I look scornful. "Definitely not. He just wants to show me something related to the case."

"I went on a few of dates with him," she says slyly.

"Really?" I am interested despite myself. "How did it go?"

"It ended for religious reasons," she deadpans. "He thought he was God and I disagreed."

We laugh together and I remember how good it feels to be outside the company of men.

***  
THE WHISTLING OYSTER  
9:16 PM

 

I enter the dimly lit bar, wondering once more what I am doing here. I spot Wickham sitting at a nearby table, beaming at me, a beer in his hand.

"Stop grinning, Detective. This isn't a date," I tell him sternly.

Wickham pushes a chair towards me with his foot. Mulder would have stood up.

"Look around you Agent Scully. You, me, a bar and beer. Just as I predicted."

I rest my hand on the chair's back, not ready to sit just yet. "The only reason I am here is because you said you had something important to show me, and that the station was still invaded by journalists."

"Is that the only reason?"

Why am I putting up with this? I should just leave him sitting here and go back to the hotel. Whatever he needs to show me can probably wait until tomorrow. But something is holding me back. I am still reeling from what was potentially a gross error in judgment on my part and don't dare let anything go by the wayside that might help us. And if I have to put up with Detective Wickham's shameless flirting, then so be it.

Agent Scully doesn't make mistakes. I look at Wickham smiling up at me, patiently waiting for me to make up my mind, his index finger lightly circling the rim of his glass.

Agent Scully doesn't do a lot of things.

I sit down.

Wickham leans back in his chair, his eyes dancing as he takes a sip of his beer. "Where's your partner?"

"Still at the library, I believe."

"Did he tell you what he was looking for?"

I shake my head before signaling the bored waitress. "No."

Wickham watches me as I order an orange juice. "Still trouble in paradise?"

I hold his gaze. "No."

He laughs. "That's all right, I won't pry."

"I find that hard to believe, considering this is the second time you've asked. Understand this: what you witnessed at the crime scene this morning was not unusual. Mulder and I have very different personalities and clashes are bound to occur. People who don't know us can easily draw the wrong conclusions - as you did." I reach for the folder on the table.

His hand covers mine, preventing me from retrieving the folder. "That may be so, but if my forensic pathologist partner neglected to share what could turn out to be a vital piece of the puzzle, my profiler self would probably be pretty mad. And he looked fairly pissed off to me this morning."

I remove my hand from under his. "You're not him."

He pushes the file towards me with a wicked smile. The man is attractive and he knows it. "For you, Scully, I could be."

"No, you couldn't," I say firmly as I open the file. "And you can call me Dana."

"I see...not worthy enough to be on a last name basis, huh? I think I'm wounded."

"You'll recover," I assure him. "I've seen these photos before," I add as I flip through a series of crime scene shots.

He waits for the waitress to serve me my drink and then reaches out and spreads the pictures on the table. "What do you see?"

I look up at him quickly. "You found a pattern?"

"Look closely and you'll see it too."

I stare at the gruesome shots until I begin to see something. It doesn't make sense to me but… "They all have their left arm resting across their stomachs?"

Wickham nods enthusiastically. "Yes, and see where their other arm is?" He jabs a finger on each shot.

I follow his finger and see that each victim's right arm is resting more or less at the same angle; slightly away from her body.

"He's positioned them."

"Exactly."

I examine the shots a little longer while drinking my orange juice.

"This guy is all about rituals, Dana. This must have some significance to him. And if we find out what this is..."

"...we might find out what makes him tick." I gather the pictures back in their folder with a sigh. "I'm afraid that logic and motivation of a man who cuts off women's breasts completely escape me. You should talk to Mulder about this. Why didn't you call him instead of me, actually?"

"You really have to ask?" He finishes his beer and stands. "Anyway, you can go and tell him now. I have to return to the station and make some calls."

I stand up as well and look at him with a teasing smile. "That was a short date."

He laughs and steps closer, handing me the file. "Ah, Dr. Scully, you're a sin waiting to happen."

He brushes a quick thumb over my cheek and then he's gone.

And despite the pleasant shivers his smoky voice triggers in my abdomen, I am coming to the unavoidable realization that my drunken confession the other night is true. Every man to whom I am attracted now commits the crime of not being Mulder.

I dig my cell phone out of my pocket to call my albatross.

***  
HOLIDAY INN INNER HARBOR  
10:24 PM

 

I find him back in his hotel room, sitting on his bed with his rumpled suit still on - minus the jacket - and surrounded by books and papers. "Defacing library books again, Mulder?" I stare at his bare feet, marvelling as usual at the sheer size of them.

He looks at me over his glasses. "What did Wickham say?"

That I'm not hiding my feelings as well as I thought.

"That the bodies have all been positioned a certain way."

"Yes, I've noticed. They all have their left arm resting under the chest wound and the other at about a thirty-degree angle to the body. Very subtle positioning, but it's there."

"It has to mean something for him but what?" I fold my own arm over my stomach and hold my right arm at a similar angle, mimicking the victim's pose.

"Don't move."

Mulder is staring at me with an intense look that worries me. "What?" Please tell me my nose is not bleeding again. I begin to lift a hand towards my face.

"Scully, don't move," he repeats, removing his glasses and slipping off the bed, slowly moving to stand behind me. He puts his arms around me and takes hold of both my hands, intertwining his fingers with mine and holding my arms in the victim's position.

"Mulder..." I whisper, his closeness unsettling after last night's events.

"Don't worry Scully. My intentions are honorable."

This is supposed to make me feel better?

"Look..." he murmurs against my hair, guiding my hands until my left elbow is pulled up sideways and my right arm is extended straight out from the shoulder.

"Life," he says, then folds my arms back in their original position. "Death."

He repeats the movement, and I suddenly understand what it is he's showing me. In the extended position it looks like I'm holding a bow and arrow.

"Archers? He wants the victims to be archers?"

"Amazons, Scully. They're Amazons."

"That's why he's cutting their breasts off!" I turn around in his arms to face him. "And because they're left handed, he's cutting their left breast, because that's how they would shoot with a bow and arrow."

We beam at each other and I let myself fall in his arms, all the resentment and awkwardness of the previous week suddenly erased.

"He's killing left-handed Amazons, Scully."

I hug him tighter and he does the same. We stay like this for a long time. His hands stroke my back absentmindedly and I know he's thinking, making connections, establishing patterns. I relax in his arms and enjoy the simple pleasure of being held. I try not to think about the fact that telling him earlier about Heike's left-handedness might have changed April Larsen's fate. Instead I take a mental paintbrush and cover all my doubts and remorse with a thick coat of Mulder.

Mulder's knees against my thighs, Mulder's chest against my cheek, Mulder's back against my hands, Mulder's -

Oh.

Mulder.

I lift my head to meet his eyes. An ironic little smile is tugging at his lips. "Honor is such a subjective concept, Scully."

I hide my face in his shoulder, laughing. "Are you sure it's not the thoughts of Amazons that turns you on? All these gorgeous, half naked warrior women riding horses -"

His hands slide down to my hips, pulling me closer. "Oh, I'm sure."

I gasp and lift my head again; this time my eyes are dead serious. "I know I was rather inebriated last night, but what about you? How drunk were you, Mulder?"

"Not enough."

"I see." I run my hands over his chest. I just cannot believe this is us - like this. "How did this happen?" I whisper half to myself.

"Courtesy of Absolut."

"That's not what I meant."

"It just happened, Scully. Let it be."

"You're quoting the Beatles at me now, Mulder?"

"I could quote Elvis if you like."

"What? Fools rush in?"

Though we're hardly rushing in, I think. Even the most sanctimonious nun who ever taught me can hardly claim one kiss in four years would rank me next to the Whore of Babylon.

"A little less conversation, Scully."

I rise on my toes to kiss his mouth softly. "Okay," I breathe against his lips. Just as I'm about to pull away his hands come up in my hair, holding my head firmly and he's kissing the hell out of me, crushing my lips and chasing my tongue. I whimper in his mouth, giving back as good as I get.

This is madness. We're not ready for this.

I'm not ready for this.

I put my hands on his chest, pushing him gently away.

Mulder looks down and blinks at me, bringing a hand to his mouth as if to check that what just happened was real.

This is way too real.

Still breathing hard, I straighten my shirt and jacket. "Call Wickham. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Slipping into something more comfortable?"

I squash the smug grin I can see blooming on his lips with a curt, "With my files. To work."

He purses his lips and nods his understanding. We both know work will always take precedence over whatever the hell it is that's going on between us.

And that knowledge is what is keeping me sane and grounded right now. I feel my life spinning around like an amusement park ride; the one with no restraints that leaves you with your back pressed against the wall as the platform rises and twirls. And Mulder - whose eyes I can always find in a crowded room - is the force that keeps me from freefalling through space.

I walk past him and open the door, not looking back as it clicks shut behind me. I head to my own room and gather my neat stack of data in my arms, wondering how much longer we can keep dancing back and forth like this.

Last week I told him that, professionally speaking, we were going in an endless straight line. And that my own life was standing still. Newton's first law states that an object in motion will not change its velocity or direction unless acted on by an outside force. This is also true of objects at rest.

Newton's second law tells us that a change in the momentum of either such body is the direct result of the amount of force which acts on it, and that the body's motion will be in the same direction as the force.

I hope the forces pushing us forward and in new directions are stronger than the ones holding us back, but Mulder and I have always operated in our own inertial frame, so my calculations are rough estimates at best.

***  
HOLIDAY INN INNER HARBOR  
SUNDAY, JANUARY 26TH  
8:20 AM

 

I knock on Scully's door and she starts talking as she opens it. "That was quick, thanks. I'm sorry about the blood but I...oh. Mulder."

She's wrapped in a towel, her hair soaking wet, and the expression on her face is both uncertain and embarrassed. She's holding the hotel robe, which has blood all over the lapel. She drops it to the floor and kicks it into the bathroom. I try not to stare at the not-quite-healed marks on her arms.

I take a few more steps into her room and push the door shut. "Everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, I just um, I called housekeeping for a clean bathrobe and some towels. I thought that's who was at the door. You're early, Mulder."

"Scully, what happened? Did you have another nosebleed?"

"I cut myself shaving," she lies, looking me straight in the eye and daring me to challenge her. It is a testament to her physical presence that she can look intimidating even as she wears nothing but a towel and comes scarcely to my shoulder. She looks thinner than I remembered, but then I rarely see her wearing so little.

"What were you shaving? Your chest hair? The blood's all over the neckline."

She gives me a cold look and is about to answer when there's a knock at the door. I open it to reveal a woman with a stack of clean towels and a robe. She hands the bundle to me with a dubious expression. "Thanks," I say. "Things got a little...wild in here." I wink and shut the door firmly in her startled face.

"Wonderful," says Scully in a tone that clearly indicates she does not think anything wonderful has just happened. "Do you even think before you do stupid things like that?"

I roll my eyes. "Scully, I don't think she's going to spread gossip about the redhead in 746 entertaining gentleman callers."

"Caller," Scully corrects. "I'm not running an escort service out of my hotel room."

I walk over to the bed and sit down while she heads to the bathroom. "Well that's a relief," I say. "I'd hate to think you were luring other men in here after treating me so cruelly."

She stops at the door to glare at me over her shoulder.

"It was a joke, Scully. Go get yourself decent." She looks suspicious, but retreats to the bathroom once more.

It wasn't a joke at all, of course. I'm not blind and I can see that she finds Wickham charming in spite of herself. I focus my energy on not thinking about her towel dropping to the floor on the other side of the wall.

She comes back out a few minutes later, Scully-casual in what is essentially a suit without a jacket. Her hair is still mostly wet and is curling around her face. She seems so much less severe like this, but if I ever told her that, she'd never let me see her this way again. So I look and enjoy but say nothing.

Scully walks over to the counter to fuss with the coffee pot - her back to me - and says, "We need to talk."

She's right of course, but it's the last thing on earth I feel like doing. "Absolutely," I agree. "If you could be any animal, which would you pick?"

She brings me a cup of coffee. "Come on, Mulder. I'm serious."

I take a sip from my mug before looking up at her. There are plum-colored shadows under her eyes and bruises and scrapes still mar her makeup-free face. Her jaw looks sharper than usual. I can tell by the way she's holding herself that she's got something rehearsed and needs to get it out. "Let's hear it."

She sits next to me and runs a manicured finger over the rim of her cup. "Mulder, I think the past couple of nights may have happened for all the wrong reasons."

I've been expecting this and don't entirely disagree, but I want to hear her thoughts. "What reasons are those?"

Scully sets her coffee on the night table and looks down at her hands. "There's been a certain amount of distance between us lately, and I worry that we're trying to bridge it in the wrong way. We've both been so stressed about this case and seeking out…intimacy is a natural reaction to this sort of thing."

I reach behind her, setting my drink next to hers on the table. "I've considered all of that too." She tilts her head up at me as I continue. "But I think there's something more. I think this is also about what happened in Philly."

She draws a sharp breath and looks away.

I take her elbow gently, mindful of the bruises he left on her. "Scully, I don't know what exactly that guy did to you, and you don't have to tell me. But if this is about wanting to erase that somehow, you do need to talk to someone."

She turns slowly back to me with a brittle laugh. "It's not that, Mulder. Truly, it isn't."

Something tells me to believe her. "Okay," I say.

Scully gives me a sad smile. "I hate to think I've screwed things up between us." I must look surprised because she chuckles. "Oh come on, Mulder. I got drunk and threw myself at you the other night."

I nudge her with my shoulder. "Yeah, I guess you did, didn't you? I don't know how you can even face me this morning, Scully."

Her cheeks blaze. "Well, if I remember correctly, you were more than happy to reciprocate," she says defensively, then realizes that I am teasing. She bites her lip and drops her head, trying not to smile.

I slide my arm around her back to pull her closer. I can almost feel her skin beneath the thin shirt, and I close my eyes to recall her tattoo.

Scully rests her head on my shoulder and makes a soft noise. "We're not really very good at this, are we? I mean, four years of uncompromised professionalism, and then we manage to wreck it like this."

I open my eyes. "You think we wrecked things?"

She looks at me in confusion. "Well, I thought we just agreed that what happened was for all the wrong reasons."

I shake my head, taking in the clean scent of her hair. "What I remember, Scully, is you giving me your thoughts and me stating that I had considered them as well. I don't recall us ever having reached a consensus on the matter. In fact," I murmur, taking her chin between my thumb and forefinger, "If anything, this conversation indicates we're being completely reasonable and objective."

"Oh," she says. "Is that what it indicates?"

I lean close enough for my lips to brush against hers. "Has it occurred to you, Scully, that perhaps we're just doing this because we want to?"

I can feel her smile. "It's a testable hypothesis. But what will Skinner say?"

"He'll cry."

"Let him."

I kiss her, trailing my fingers along her neck and through her still-damp hair. She's got her hand at the back of my head and is pulling my mouth against hers. Her hand starts unbuttoning my shirt, then slips inside. The touch of her fingers on my chest is electric and there is no chance we're going to be on time for our meeting with Wickham.

Her nails are leaving goose bumps in their wake. I put an arm around her waist, easing her slowly down to the bed. It is with greatly mixed feelings that I stop kissing her so I can stare down. Scully's hair is fanned out around her head, her breath coming quickly, and I reach down to begin opening her shirt. Her lips are parted slightly and she watches me, which is somewhat surprising. I always thought she'd close her eyes.

I know so very little about her.

I'm not supposed to know any of this about her, I remind myself. She's my partner.

Two buttons to go. Two buttons and I can still get up, walk out of here and stop pretending there isn't something else going on because it may not be about Philadelphia, but it's something because her nose keeps bleeding and she's tired and she's watching me unbutton her shirt.

The fabric falls away from her lean body and I think even OPR would accept that sometimes there are just mitigating circumstances.

Her bruises don't shock me this time. The only thought that really occurs to me is that I have a burning desire to know what her skin tastes like. I hold her face in my hands and she turns her head slightly to kiss my palm, then runs her teeth along my thumb. Any lingering blood in my cerebral cortex has just headed south.

My other hand moves slowly down her neck, between the rise of her breasts; down to the smooth skin around her belly button. I slide the tips of my fingers under the waistband of her skirt, where it is stretched across the frame of her hipbones. Her back arches upwards, and she draws my thumb into her mouth, doing things with her tongue that suggest a wellspring of potential.

I lean down to kiss the hard wings of her collarbones. She makes soft murmuring sounds and bats at my hair as I run my tongue over the tops of her breasts, tracing her navel with my forefinger. I move lower, kissing the warm, sweet skin just below her bra, feeling satin pressed against my forehead. Her back rises again and then she makes a sharp, pained noise. I look up as she props herself up on her elbows, which has the alluring effect of pushing her chest out further.

"Scully?"

She smiles ruefully. "My ribs…Mulder, I think…"

"You think too much," I say, cupping her breast and kissing her neck again.

"I think I should probably be on top," she says into my hair.

I don't know who this woman is, but I like her already.

"Then by all means, keep thinking."

She laughs and I kiss her mouth again before she stops me to sit up carefully. I shift to half-sit against the headboard, watching her stand. Her crisp blue dress shirt is loose and obscures most of her bra, her tailored gray skirt still as pressed and unwrinkled as if she had just strolled into the office. But the look on her face is nothing she's ever worn to work.

"Get over here, Scully."

She walks around the bed and eases herself next to me, leaning over to kiss me as she straddles my lap. Her skirt rides up and I press my hands to the sides of her legs, faintly disappointed by the feel of nylon. Disappointment turns to delight as I run my fingers upwards. My, my, Agent Scully is wearing thigh highs. No garters, but honest-to-god thigh highs just the same. I snap the elastic against her leg.

"Pantyhose pinch at the waist, Mulder. Try to control yourself because these are like twenty bucks a pair."

I'll replace them if I have to.

"Is this a regular thing, Scully? Have you actually been wearing these under your prim little suits for four years without my knowledge?"

She sits back and smirks. "I think three-inch heels are enough of a concession in a job that requires me to chase bad guys on foot. I don't see any need to pack my backside into a straightjacket every morning too."

"I applaud your pragmatism," I say, leaning up to catch her bottom lip between my teeth, wondering how I will ever get through another day at work without risking both our careers.

Scully rolls her shoulders back and her shirt falls to the bed. She reaches around to unhook her bra and rocks against me.

"Scully..." I groan.

Her hands drop to her sides and she cocks her head. "I don't know, Mulder. I think it's getting late." She checks her watch. "Maybe we should get going." She rises up on her knees.

I grab her by the hips to pull her back down. "Stay right here and I'll make it the best five minutes of your life, baby."

She laughs, tossing her head back; a ray of sunlight playing across the long line of her throat.

"Scully," I say. "Look at me."

She does, her face serious now, watchful as she shifts onto my stomach. I move my hands over her own, up her wrists, following the curves of her arms, before slipping them over her shoulders and down her back. I trace endless circles on her skin with my palms and fingertips and she sighs dreamily, rolling her neck and trailing her fingers along my chest.

I imagine I can polish her white body until I reveal a layer of skin that no one has touched but me. That I can erase all the damage done and we can start over from here.

Eyes half-lidded, Scully murmurs my name as I unfasten her bra and slide it down her arms. I sit up fully and pull her forward until I get her perfect breasts at eye level. My breath catches in my throat as I run my thumbs over them and she makes liquid sounds at my touch, her fingernails scraping at the headboard behind me

I take her nipple into my mouth and she moans softly, her cool fingers skimming across my face and neck like snowflakes. She rocks back on her knees, grabs my hair and pulls my head backward to kiss me hungrily.

"Mulder," she breathes. Scully's mouth is honeyed, undiluted by alcohol or apprehension. The air between us is heady with the scent of her hair and her skin and her subtle perfume. I start to protest when she pulls away after far too short a time, but I give in when I realize she's removing her underwear. Then she smiles against my lips, her hands going to my belt buckle.

She watches me with her moonstone eyes, opening my zipper and pushing my trousers down. Her fingers pull at the waistband of my boxers and it isn't long before they join the pile of clothes at the foot of the bed. She leans forward, kissing her way up my neck, and I close my eyes for a heartbeat as she returns to my lap. I look at her again - feeling her knees grip my sides - and I bracket her waist with my hands, pressing my thumbs above her hipbones, fanning my fingers up her back as her spine arches towards me. She's crimson and gold, like a drift of autumn leaves and I want to pay her some frivolous compliment because, for the first time, it would not be inappropriate.

We stare at each other as I push up into her. The moment is raw, elemental. Scully is fire and water and I am burning up and drowning in her all at once.

I seriously consider the fact that we may be lucky if it's five minutes after all.

***  
BALTIMORE POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
9:50 AM

 

The bank of karmic retribution is firm with me and I am rarely extended credit. A morning in bed with Scully is undoubtedly going to come at a high price and, having accepted this reality some time ago, I can only wonder when the other shoe will drop.

I need to stop looking at the Scully of forty-five minutes ago superimposed over the woman next to me now. I need to stop hearing her ragged breath in my ear and feeling her elegant little claws digging into my shoulder blades. Her hand brushes mine as she opens the heavy glass door and I blink away the memory of my hands at her bare waist; her skin smooth as vellum with that tumble of new-penny hair burning against her shoulders.

We're twenty minutes late for our meeting at the police station and Wickham greets us with a dark look. "No need to inform me you were running behind. Really, I'm at your beck and call." He slams a thick binder to his desk.

"Detective - " Scully begins. He looks up and regards her a moment too long.

"Your hair looks nice all wavy like that, Agent Scully. Blow dryer broken?"

A faint blush rises high in her cheeks, but it's subtle and the lighting is bad. I will him to shut up anyway.

Scully clears her throat. "As we discussed last night, we've concluded that the killer is positioning the women to resemble archers."

"And that the removal of the left breast is related to the mythological practice of the Amazons. The Amazons removed the right breast, but the women were left-handed and, thus, the killer removed the left breast. That's why he wrote 'sinister.' From the Latin sinistra; left," I add.

He sits down and looks at us both slowly. "Oh, so you two are communicating again? That's nice. Glad you were able to work your issues out. I'll assume you decided to forgo the cocaine, but two out of three ain't bad."

To the untrained eye, Scully looks cool as ever. But I can see her beginning to smolder.

"I think we're looking for a man who was abandoned by his mother at an early age. We need to start going through those background checks again," I add before Scully immolates Wickham with the cold fire in her eyes.

Wickham is doubly saved, because Scully's phone rings and after a brief conversation, she informs us that the lab wants her back. She throws the pair of us an indecipherable look and clips to the front door with a purposeful stride.

"I guess you decided to bring her that new microscope after all," Wickham observes dryly after the door swings closed.

"Wickham, I..."

He holds up his hand like a cop directing traffic. "Tell me. Did this first occur before or after your little performance at the crime scene yesterday? I just want to know at exactly what point in the timeline you decided to make me look like an idiot."

"For what it's worth, I truly thought you would be someone good for her."

"But you're better?"

I roll my eyes. "You think I seduced her to spite you? You don't give her much credit."

He looks thoughtful for a moment. I can see him weighing what he's seen of Scully against his desire to be pissed off at me.

"You make a valid point," he concedes.

"I honestly don't think I'm better for her," I tell him. "I'd argue I'm probably the worst thing for her, in fact."

Wickham unbends a paper clip. "You could talk her out of it, you know. Send her running to me."

I laugh. "I'm empathetic, Wickham. Not stupid."

He snorts. "You sleep on a couch and it took you four years to make a move on her? Would you care to define stupid?"

I don't think that will be necessary, thanks.

Jasper of RickandJasper - as I have come to think of them - moseys over with a box of donuts. "Hey," he says amiably. "Breakfast?"

I peer into the box and shake my head. "No thanks. I don't do jelly."

Wickham huffs. "You're such a prima donna." He helps himself to two and then gives Jasper a dirty look. "Nice shirt, dumbass. You really *are* six, aren't you?""

I look at Jasper's sweatshirt which reads "Remember: You can't spell manslaughter without laughter."

I laugh and Wickham glares at me. "Don't encourage him."

"Sorry. It's funny."

Jasper beams. "See? Some people have a sense of humor. I have to head to class for now but Rick's upstairs printing out some stuff Karen sent over." He puts the bakery box down on the desk.

Jasper walks to the door and Wickham calls, "I've already booked Barney for your seventh birthday party. It's a little early, but his schedule fills up fast. Try to wear something appropriate, would you?"

"Laugh it up old man. I've got my whole life ahead of me."

"Make sure to ask a grownup if you get lost on campus, okay?"

Jasper gives him the finger and heads outside.

I give Wickham a questioning look.

He brushes powdered sugar off his cheek. "Jasper's birthday is Leap Day so we rag on him about it. His sixth-and-three-quarters birthday is a month away. I'm gonna get him a nice Buzz Lightyear or whatever the kids like this year."

Shit. Scully's birthday is coming up, isn't it? What do you buy your partner for her birthday now that you've slept together? There's probably not a delicate way to get Wickham's opinion on the matter.

"Let's go upstairs" Wickham says. "I want to keep anything new as far from prying eyes as possible."

We take the elevator up and when the doors slide open, we almost bump into Rick. "Hey," he says, handing Wickham a sheaf of papers. "I was just on my way down. Printouts on that plastic from the hearts. Karen's been busting her ass on this, so you'd better send some flowers." He winks.

Wickham finishes his second donut and flips through the pages. "This is promising," he says. "Have you been sweet-talking my girl? Why didn't she send this to me?"

Rick smirks. "Let's just say I have a way with the ladies. Besides, Jack, you're moving into geezer territory." He points at Wickham's graying temples.

"It's the difference between grape juice and fine wine," Wickham tells him.

"Wine turns to vinegar," Rick muses.

"Punk."

Rick laughs and gets in the elevator while we head to an office across the hall.

"The techs use this office, so we're okay in here," Wickham says. "Take a look at this and see what you think."

I sit down at a desk and pick up a Xena action figure while I read through the printouts. "Looks like they use a lot of it at Johns Hopkins. We can check it out tomorrow. It'll be pretty dead over there today, plus we're booked solid through the evening already. Nice toy collection in here, by the way."

Wickham examines an action figure of a woman dressed in black and red from the top of the monitor. "We only employ geeks," he says. "It's a job requirement. I don't even know what this thing is."

"Tiamat," I say without thinking. "Dungeons and Dragons. See? Here's a red dragon. Most powerful of the chromatic dragons." I pick it up and make it chase after a plastic Princess Leia. "Help me, Obi-Wan," she simpers in my wavering falsetto. "You're my only hope."

Wickham looks at me incredulously. "If you had any decency at all, you'd set Agent Scully straight on exactly what kind of freak you are."

"I'm Rick James, bitch," says the dragon, while Xena looks on in admiration.

Wickham shakes his head in dismay.

***  
HOLIDAY INN INNER HARBOR  
SUNDAY, JANUARY 26TH  
4:05 PM

 

My partner really knows how to pick her moments to become unreachable, I'll tell you that. The ME's office confirmed that she'd left two hours ago and as I got fed up with hearing the irritatingly calm and friendly tones of her voicemail service, I decided to go back to the hotel. I could not find any logical reason for her to come back there in the middle of the day just as we were finally making progress on the case, but I couldn't think of anything else. Even if she'd spilled coffee on her suit and came here to change, it still doesn't explain why she isn't answering her phone.

I try to quell my rising paranoia. Maybe her battery's just dead.

I knock on her door.

She never lets her battery run out, the stern academic voice of all things Scully chimes in my head. She always has a spare.

I knock on her door again.

Maybe she's gone to church, to confess her morning sin. I can still feel the ghost brush of her skin on mine.

There are quite a few things I will need to add to her profile later.

I dig my phone out of my pocket and speed dial her number for the nth time that day. I hear a chirping sound on the other side of the door. Her phone is in her room. What the hell is going on?

I hurry back to the lobby, racing down the flight of stairs like a bat out of a belfry, and wave my badge around until they give me a double of Scully's key. I rush back upstairs and open her door.

The first thing I see is…well not much. Her curtains are drawn and the room is dark. I switch the lights on.

"Turn the fucking lights off!" Scully's voice snarls at me. The bathroom door slams shut just as I figure out that's where she is.

I turn the lights back off and make my way across her bedroom, wondering what on Earth is causing Scully to swear like that. She hardly ever does.

I lean my hand on the bathroom door. "Hey, Scully? What's going on?"

"Leave me alone, Mulder." Her voice is strange and kind of stuffy, like she's suffering from a cold.

"Scully, you know me better than that. You know I won't leave before you explain what you're doing in a dark bathroom in the middle of the afternoon."

"I have a headache and the light is hurting my eyes. Now go away."

"Not before I see you. I'm coming in, Scully."

"Mulder, no. Just go, please."

If anything, this last plea propels me inside even faster. If Scully doesn't swear often, she begs even less. Something is very, very wrong.

I push on the door handle and step inside. The light coming from the hallway is barely enough to give shape to objects in there. As my eyes adjust to the ashen gloom, I see Scully sitting against the bathtub with her knees up and her head in her hands.

I kneel in front of her and gently lay my hands on her shoulders.

"Hey, Scully. How bad is it?"

She doesn't answer.

I run my fingers along her arms until I reach her hands. I want her to let go of that death grip she has on her head but as I do so I feel something sticky against my fingers. Since I can barely see, I lift a hand to my nose.

I smell blood.

Her hands are covered in blood.

Fuck.

I panic and stand up to turn the bathroom lights on. Scully howls in agony and covers her face with her bloody hands to protect her eyes while rocking back and forth. I immediately hit the light switch again. I've seen enough. The white tiles all around her are smeared with blood.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." I fall back down on my knees next to her, and wrap my arms around her, feeling her slender body shake with the tension of what seems to be excruciating pain. "Scully, we need to take you to a hospital."

She tenses even more in my arms. "No."

I let go of her to search for my phone in my coat pocket. "We're not discussing this, Scully. You're going."

Her hand closes on my wrist as I'm about to dial. "Mulder, listen to me. I want you to go over to my bag and get me…"

"Don't even try to talk me out of this," I tell her, pulling my arm away.

She sits up straighter against the tub and I can see her face now in shades of black and grey - the whites of her eyes bracketing the ink wells of her irises - her skin pale as a December sky.

Her hand touches my thigh. "I'm not, but I need you to give me another shot of Imitrex."

I consider this. "And then you will let me call an ambulance?"

"It won't be necessary."

"Scully, I don't care if I have to handcuff you and throw you over my shoulder, but one way or another you are going to the hospital."

She searches for my hand in the dark. "I meant, you can take me there yourself, there's no need for an ambulance. Help me up."

I help her stand up and she leans heavily against me as we make our way across her room to her bed. Once she is lying down, I go around the bed to set the bedside lamp on the floor and cover it with one of her blue shirts. A soft blue glow fills the room when I hit the switch and fortunately, Scully seems okay with it. She asks me for a damp cloth to wipe the blood off her face, then directs me to a paper bag from the pharmacy that sits on top of files on her desk.

"When did you get this?" I ask her. "Is this why you left earlier? You wrote yourself a prescription?"

She pulls the cloth down over her eyes, nodding weakly. "My headaches have been getting worse," she reluctantly admits while I prepare the injection.

"You could have said something."

"We're in the middle of a case, Mulder. I didn't want to distract you with my personal problems."

Except, Scully, that your personal problems made you sloppy enough to forget something important. Oh, I won't say it to your face; I know you've been digging into that guilt pie all by yourself, just by the way your eyes avoid mine whenever the name April Larsen is mentioned.

I approach the bed, syringe in hand. "How do you wanna do this?"

She removes the cloth from her eyes and gives me a priceless look before lifting her sleeve.

"Have fun," she murmurs.

I sit by her side and carefully give her the shot. "Unlike you, Scully, I don't get off on needles," I tell her once I've finished, rolling her sleeve back down.

"No, Mulder. You just get off on the results," she replies weakly before curling up in a fetal position, her breathing shallow and rasping.

I bite my tongue, aware that I'm being mean for no reason. I guess I'm a little angry she felt like she couldn't confide in me about this. The voice of Ed Jerse drifts back in my head - "She talked to me, man."

Well she fucked me too, but she still doesn't talk. Must be something I'm doing wrong. I lean over her and gently brush her hair behind her ear to kiss her temple. "Is it working?"

Her hand comes up and blindly pats the side of my head. "It will."

"I'm going to go to my room but I'll be back right away."

She makes a little humming noise and lets her hand fall back on the bed. I stand up and leave her room, quietly closing her door behind me.

***

I return fifteen minutes later with a bloodstain-free shirt. Wickham has assured me over the phone that he doesn't need my sorry ass down at the station. I find Scully fast asleep in her bed, snoring like a retired general. After arguing with myself for a good long while, I decide to let her sleep for now. I gather the stack of files from her desk and choose use her bathroom as a study rather than going back to my own place.

Archimedes solved his problem while sitting in his tub. Maybe I should try it.

****  
HOLIDAY INN INNER HARBOR  
SUNDAY, JANUARY 26TH  
7:04 PM

 

"Mulder, what are you doing in my bathtub?"

He jerks awake, scattering the papers on his lap, and stares up at me with a slightly disoriented air.

"Scully?"

He sits up, yawning and rubbing his eyes, while I do my best not to melt at how adorable he looks right now, with his hair standing up in every direction.

"Care to explain what you are doing here?"

He checks his watch. "Missing the Super Bowl kickoff, apparently." He gathers the papers around him, then stands up to step out of the tub.

"There was no need for you to stay here," I point out, reaching for my toothbrush and searching for the toothpaste in the toiletry bag I left opened by the sink.

"I was waiting for you to wake up to take you to the hospital, remember?"

Honestly Mulder, I don't remember much except that a teeth shattering pain drove me to my knees, as I felt like a burning needle was slowly being inserted behind my eyeballs.

"As you can see, there is no need for that now. I'm fine." I slide the toothbrush in my mouth. In the mirror I see Mulder's reflection hesitate and throw me an unreadable look before leaving me alone to my ablutions.

All I feel now is a lingering tenderness in my neck and jaw along with a deep weariness that makes my muscles feel like wet cotton balls. My fingernails are encrusted with blood and I feel sticky with sweat.

I need a shower.

I know Mulder is right, I tell myself while peeling off my clothes. I need to get myself checked into a hospital. I think I just experienced what is called a cluster headache - what migraines want to be when they grow up - but I am aware that these debilitating symptoms could indicate any number of other conditions. Including multiple sclerosis and brain tumors.

You have something I need.

I step under the spray and run my hands in my hair. The time for the stubborn denial at which I excel is over. Once this case is closed I will have to find out what is happening to me.

Under the water, I join my hands and start praying for my body to hold on just a little while longer.

Please Lord, let me hold on just a few more days.


	5. Chapter 5

HOLIDAY INN INNER HARBOR  
SUNDAY, JANUARY 26TH  
7:29 PM

 

When I come back in the bedroom, Mulder is still here, sitting on the edge of my bed and watching me approach with a grim determination that doesn't bode well at all.

"Mulder, what are you still doing here?" I ask, tightening the belt of my robe with nervous fingers.

He doesn't stand up; just sits there with his back straight and his jaw tight, like he's bracing himself for an uppercut. "Scully, I want you to pick up the phone. I want you to call Skinner and tell him you're pulling out from this case. And then I want you to go back to DC and check yourself into a hospital immediately."

I cross my arms, feeling my spine stretch with indignation. "Is that all? Mulder, there is really no need..."

"...I'm asking you to do it yourself because I really don't want to be the one to call our A.D. to tell him in what state I found you a few hours ago."

"You can't do that, Mulder."

He finally stands up and walks to me. He lays both hands on my shoulders.

"Dana, I want you to look me in the eyes and answer this: if it had been me in this bathroom - as a doctor and an agent - would you seriously consider keeping me in the field?"

I lower my head, my stomach doing a little flip at how intimate my first name sounds on his lips now. Like some hook he can use to remind me that he knows who I am, where I come from and what I do; now more than ever.

And yet, in bed this morning, the only name on his breath was Scully.

There is only one right answer to his question, and I feel my shoulders slump under his fingers. I will not fight him on this.

"No. No, I wouldn't let you stay."

He nods, his fingers squeezing my shoulders briefly before stepping back.

"What about the case?" I whisper.

"I have your files, Scully. And I can always call you if I need something explained."

"Just tell me one thing Mulder: has this anything to do with the left-handed issue? You were looking at my autopsy reports earlier. Fear I forgot something else?"

I said I would not fight. I never said I would make it easy.

He gives me a hard look. "Nice try, Scully. Baiting me into arguing with you isn't going to work today. I'm not going to be sidetracked here."

Damn him. I feel something smile-like pull at my lips. "All right. I'll go back to DC but on one condition: you let me come to the morning briefing with you. And you promise to call me with regular updates, do you hear me?" I wave a threatening index finger at him.

"That's a deal. Besides, Wickham would never forgive you if you left without saying good bye."

I turn to retrieve my pajamas from my suitcase, muttering, "Wickham can kiss my ass," under my breath.

"Oh I'm sure he'd love that," Mulder says on his way out. "You feel up to watching the second half with me, Scully?"

I shake my head. "No, but thanks. You can just pick up Superstars of the Super Bowl Part Two for me sometime."

He winks. " We'll skip the coma this time though, okay?"

"I'll do my best." I reply, shooing him out of the room.

***  
BALTIMORE POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
MONDAY, JANUARY 27TH  
7:52 AM

 

Mulder slows his pace down as we walk in, matching his stride to mine. Exhaustion has made me lag this morning and I wonder if this is something Mulder does deliberately or if it's just second nature by now. Either way, I appreciate the fact that I don't have to trot along at his heels.

Wickham greets us with coffee. "Morning," he says. "Watch the game last night? Fucking Packers."

Mulder looks sympathetic. "Brett Favre is a machine and Parcells' Cinderellas didn't have a chance. Made a decent showing though, all things considered."

"Big Pats fan?"

"I'm from Massachusetts."

"My condolences. You want a shot of something stronger in this, then?"

Mulder takes the steaming cup. "Let's see how today goes and I might take you up on that later."

Wickham hands me my coffee. "You like the Patriots too, Agent Scully?"

"Thank you. I don't have strong feelings either way."

"Please don't tell me you like the Packers. You think Favre is pretty, don't you? Admit it - you only watched to check him out."

"Not much of a football fan, really. I didn't catch the game."

Wickham looks scandalized. "Is that legal? It seems seditious for a federal employee to miss the Super Bowl. Un-American."

"She's a rebel," says Mulder. "Shall we get started?"

Wickham shrugs. "There's not much to start on, truth be told. Just continuing what we've been doing. Following up leads and making phone calls. I've gone over these background checks so many times I could write a series of biographies with my eyes closed, but I'm running out of ideas. Hoping to get something more concrete on the plastic today, so you can expect a call about that before long, Agent Scully."

I can feel Mulder give me a quick glance.

I take a sip of my coffee before speaking. "Actually, I'll be heading back to DC this morning. Agent Mulder is taking me to the MARC train. I just wanted to come in and get the latest updates before I say goodbye."

Wickham looks taken aback. "Is everything all right?"

I am uncomfortably aware that Mulder is about to watch me perform the routine I go through when I lie to him. I wonder if I'll ever be able to do it again, or if every attempt will be thwarted by the memory of how deeply he looked into me yesterday morning.

"Thank you, Detective Wickham, but everything is fine. I've handled all there is within my realm of expertise, though you're welcome to fax me anything new. At this point it's really just Agent Mulder's skills you'll need. I have further engagements in Washington that require my immediate attention."

He perches on the edge of a desk. "Is this your MO, Agent Scully? Sail into town, break a heart or two, and then disappear?"

"I can recommend a good cardiologist."

Wickham chuckles. "It's been a genuine pleasure." He holds his hand out and I take it, shaking it firmly.

I smile. "Thank you. For me as well. Just leave Switzerland alone, would you?"

"I could never deprive the world of fine chocolate and posh boarding schools."

I laugh, then withdraw my hand and glance at my watch. "We'd better get going," I tell Mulder.

He nods. "I'll be back shortly," he says to Wickham.

"Maybe Lichtenstein, then!" Wickham shouts as we step out.

The desire to stay with them and see this through is so strong that it aches, but I know Mulder's right. Staying would be irresponsible and foolish. I follow him out to the car, hanging back a little to watch his coat move around his angular frame; a long, stark figure of a man sketched against the cold haze of midwinter.

In bed - as in all other endeavors - my partner has an admirable efficiency coupled with a careful attention to detail.

Mulder's fingers against my thighs, the way they slide over the muscles as though I am an instrument he's learning to play. The firm press of his hand at my back as...

My breath tingles in the back of my throat and I hurry over to the open passenger's side door and climb in. "Let's go," I say, buckling my seatbelt and closing the door.

Mulder pulls out onto President Street. The morning is wrapped in a freezing mist and the car's headlights turn the world ahead of us into yellow gauze. I see him crane his neck and curse under his breath as he's trying to read the road signs.

"I am perfectly capable of driving back home, Mulder. I could have taken a rental."

He keeps squinting into the fog, not even sparing me a glance. "We talked about this, Scully. You're not driving."

I direct the air vent towards my lap. The damp winter chill has settled in my bones and I can't seem to get warm. "When did you become so bossy?"

"When did you start having nosebleeds and crippling headaches?"

I sigh and settle deeper in my seat, tucking my hands inside my sleeves. I really have no desire to argue with him further. Train it is. We spend the rest of the drive in silence.

Mulder has a tendency to become overprotective when he's worried and I have often been annoyed by it. At first I thought that he didn't trust me to hold my own. Over the years, as I came to understand how the loss of his sister had shaped his vision of the world, I realized that what he didn't trust was the inexorable entropy of the universe around him.

From the corner of my eye I watch him pop sunflower seeds into his mouth as he drives, chewing pensively.

I wonder if his mind is with the case or still in bed with me.

I keep being pulled back in that room over and over again, like a time traveling pendulum - the memories solid and smooth as pebbles under a clear spring.

My head is full of him - his skin, his smell, how his muscles moved against my thighs, the heat of his lips on my shoulder, the way he said my name.

Apart from a few fevered dreams of blinding white light and high pitched drill noises, I have no recollection of what happened or what was done to me after Duane Barry took me, and yet it changed me in ways I never predicted.

But this I remember. This I own. And I know it will change us too.

How it will, I don't know yet.

"Ah, here it is," Mulder says, maneuvering the car into the parking lot.

We step out of the car and I let him retrieve my suitcase from the trunk while I pull my leather gloves on. I can barely make out Camden Yards in the gray mist.

"What on Earth do you have in here, Scully? This thing weighs a ton." My partner narrows his eyes playfully at me. "Did you take a souvenir from the morgue again?"

"There was that autopsy table which looked so very Philippe Stark I just could not resist." I hold out a hand. "Here, let me carry it."

He pushes my hand away, then pulls out the garment bag and drapes it over his arm. "Why don't you let me be the big macho man for a little while longer?"

I hide a smile under my gloved hand - the pendulum holding still for a second over an image of us naked, slowly moving against each other, broken words of awe whispered in my ear.

We start walking towards the platform when I realize that I am short on cash and the ticket machine won't take credit cards. So I leave Mulder perusing magazines at the newsstand while I go locate an ATM. I come back to find him engrossed in the New York Times. I get his attention with a light touch on his back. "What, no Celebrity Skin?"

He turns the next page without looking at me. "No. I recently upgraded."

"I see." I dip my chin and clear my throat a little. "Um, the train is leaving in fifteen minutes."

"Okay." Mulder folds his paper to fit in his coat pocket and grabs my bags again. We walk towards the train and I look up to see the mist curl like pearl ribbons around the lampposts, the fog creating an eerie quiet around us. The platform is nearly empty except for a teenager in a red down jacket hurrying to take the last few drags from his cigarette, and a guy in a suit with a briefcase checking his cell phone. I guess I missed rush hour.

Mulder sets my suitcase by the door and hands me the garment bag. "Here you go."

"Thanks."

And we stand there like two idiots, hands in our pockets, unsure how to say goodbye to each other. Is this how it's going to be now, I wonder. The simplest social interactions warped by our biblical knowledge of one another?

This is ridiculous. Get a grip, Dana. I reach out to pat his arm, then run my hand down to briefly link my fingers with his before letting go.

"Goodbye, Mulder. I'll see you soon."

I am such an adventurous woman.

His eyes betray nothing. "Let's hope so. Call me tonight."

I nod, take my luggage, and climb aboard.

I walk to the third row and then reach up to stow my luggage in the overhead rack. I am about to take my seat when I feel a hand come down on either shoulder. I reach for my gun just as I catch Mulder's reflection in the window.

"Jesus, Mulder! Don't *do* that," I say, slightly breathless. "What is it?"

He doesn't reply but steers me back out into the walkway and towards the door.

"Mulder, the train is going to leave."

He pushes me gently outside and the cold is a shock after just a few minutes in the close, warm air of the train car. "My luggage is in there. My laptop - "

Mulder turns me by the shoulders so that I am facing him. "Let's do this properly, shall we?" He steps closer and I hesitate. Sex in a locked hotel room seven stories above prying eyes is one thing; kissing him in the open before taking a train home in the middle of a case due to an unexplained - and possibly serious - medical condition feels like tempting fate.

So much easier to leave this behind.

"Scully..." he says in the burnt-sugar voice of yesterday morning.

Screw fate.

I close the space between us and tilt my head up.

That's all it takes.

Our lips meet softly; and I realize that every kiss over the past few days has been a mere rehearsal for this one. Shivers slide down my back like rain on a vine at every brush of his tongue against my own. His hands slide under my coat to hold my waist as our kiss blossoms and swells, distilling the essence of who we are and sending it crashing back in my chest.

Our first handshake. Watching the Skies at Ellens Airbase. His hands against my neck in Icy Cape. Catching our breath by the escalator after killing Tooms. Miles of filing cabinets in a dark mine. Quoting Moby Dick on Heuvelmans lake. Screaming my name outside Schnauz's van - saving my life. Bathing him in ice - saving his life. His fingers on my cheek when my father died. My cross deposited in the palm of my hand. Letting myself cry in his arms in Pfaster's house.

The fog curls over our heads like ghostly fern leaves, keeping our secrets. Everything that is us so bright and vivid, as if we were leeching all sound and color from the rest of the world. I reevaluate the notion that time slows down only as one approaches the speed of light because we are standing still and yet each second is imbued with forever.

I feel Mulder's hands slide down from my waist, his fingers moving along my hip and over my skirt to trace the edge of my thigh highs. I smile against his lips and slap his hand through my coat.

His lips move to my ear. "Just checking," he whispers.

I smooth my hands over the thick wool of his lapels. "I have to go."

He strokes my upper arms briefly. "I know. Go catch your train."

I leave him, crossing the platform to the open doors.

Once in my seat, I peer out the window to see Mulder waving goodbye. We hardly ever greet each other and now he's *waving* at me? I shake my head while removing my leather gloves. The businessman I saw on the platform looks up from his newspaper to smile at me. Our case is all over the front page.

My throat is tight with the effort of trying not to feel like I've given up.

As the train lurches forward, taking me into an uncertain future, I lean towards the cold glass.

And I wave back.

***  
BALTIMORE POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
8:39 AM

 

Wickham looks concerned as I walk in but doesn't ask anything and I don't offer up any information.

"I've got two interviews for you at Hopkins." He says. "One guy, Harris, works in an anatomy lab that plasticizes organs. His mother was killed by his father when he was nine and Harris was tried - though not convicted - for aggravated assault on two women at a nightclub. Second is a grad student who is a member of the Poe Society. Raised until age ten by a single mother who then ditched him for a crack pipe. Ex-girlfriend said he raped her, but she dropped all charges as the trial approached. Worth checking out I guess. You ready?"

I nod, hoping this day will be my last on the case. Save the girl and get out of Dodge - back to the familiar confines of home, hearth, and badgering Scully to take care of herself.

I take the paperwork from Wickham and head back into the cold fog.

***  
JOHNS HOPKINS BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH  
11:19 AM

 

"Thank you, Dr. Harris; I don't have any more questions."

"I should think not."

Theodore Harris gives me an affronted look before rising stiffly to his feet and stalking from the room like a wet cat.

I sigh, drawing little squares on my notepad, and then rest my head on the cool surface of the metal table. I close my eyes for a minute as exhaustion catches up with me. My eyelids are growing heavy and I know I should make a move when the door opens and a young man in scrubs comes in with a large piece of unidentifiable equipment which Scully can probably operate. "Dr. Shaw, I have your - oh! Sorry. I was looking for Doctor Shaw. I'll just leave this here."

He sets the device down on the lab bench and points to my legal pad. "May I?" I nod, handing him my pen. As he writes, I notice that his hands are criss-crossed with long scratches; some almost healed, others nearly new.

"Wow, what happened to your hands?" I ask in what I hope is a casual tone while trying to read his note without attracting his attention. It's a thank-you note to Dr. Shaw for the use of the machine. Signed Leo.

He glances at them and then shrugs. "I work with rats. They scratch when you inject them."

"You don't wear gloves?"

He shrugs again. "Just nitrile. They've got sharp claws and it's hard to take notes in heavy gear."

"I imagine so. What are you injecting them with?"

"Flunitra - Rohypnol." He eyes me suspiciously. "You ask a lot of questions. Are you here about the grant? Because we take OSHA precautions. We have someone from the FDA here observing our research, you know."

I smile. "No, nothing like that. Just nosy, I guess."

He eyes me up, offering the pen back, but I put my hands in my pockets, which earns me an odd look. But he thanks me and sets it on the table before striding from the room. I pull out my phone as soon as he's out of earshot.

"Wickham? It's Mulder. Listen, send one of your fingerprint guys over to the Bloomberg Building on Wolfe. I'm in 832. I need to keep it quiet, but hustle."

I sit back down, guarding the nice fat latent which I can see on the side of the machine, and drum my fingers on the tabletop. Fifteen agonizingly slow minutes pass before Rick arrives and sidles in, looking surreptitiously over his shoulder.

"Whatcha got, Agent Mulder?"

I point to where the man touched the machine and the table. I also pass him the pen. "See if you can scare up any prints from these spots, would you?"

"Wow, a variable automatic gradient HPLC. Nice." He opens his box of tools and begins dusting. "I brought the bi-chromatic today," he says, grinning.

"Trying to kiss some ass?"

He dusts carefully around the tabletop. "I need a raise. Grad school stipends don't do much to impress the ladies." He carefully presses the adhesive to the surface, then lifts it away to secure it to a white card.

I pull out my wallet and hand Rick a twenty. He blinks in surprise. "Agent Mulder?"

"You hustled and I appreciate it. Go buy the ladies a drink."

He accepts the money, a little embarrassed, before packing up his supplies. "No problem. I'll get these to you ASAP and you can go do that voodoo that you do so well."

"Mel Brooks fan?"

"Isn't everyone?"

We take the elevator downstairs together and head to our respective cars.

I pull out my phone then call 411 to get the number for the HR department at the Hopkins main campus. A surly-sounding person named Marie takes my call. "Hi, this is Special Agent Fox Mulder with the FBI. Badge number JTT047101111. I'm working on a homicide investigation and I need the name of one of your employees. His first name is Leo. Late twenties, about 6 feet tall, 185 pounds or so. Dark hair. I just need his last name and current address and if…what? Yeah, I'll hold."

I grit my teeth while she gets her supervisor.

"Ma'am? Yes, this is Agent Mulder. No, I just need to know the last name of…right. No, I understand that. I was just at the Bloomberg Building a few minutes ago talking to two of your employees. Yes, that was me. Yeah, Detective Wickham. Wickham? W-I-C-K…yes. This number. Thank you."

I twist an empty coffee cup from the floor into a mangled lump while I wait for her to call back. The phone finally rings and I jot the information down on my pad, thanking her profusely and bidding her good day.

I call Wickham with the name and drive back to the police station, eager to see what turns up with the prints.

***  
BALTIMORE POLICE HEADQUARTERS  
12:42 PM

 

"I'll let her know, Karen. Yes, thank you." Wickham hangs up the phone and turns to me. "Karen was checking in on Agent Scully," he says. "Quite the little mystery, your partner."

"She always has been. I'll pass along Karen's regards. Rick get here yet?"

Wickham nods. "About five minutes ahead of you. Running the prints now. Jasper offered to chip in and make some calls since he's a student at Hopkins." He rubs his hands together. "Works in a lab with Rohypnol. That's damned fortuitous, don't you think?"

"Very much."

I pull up a chair and scrutinize crime scene photos I know by heart. We are so close I can taste it.

The elevator doors ding and I look up to see Jasper step out with a triumphant look on his face. "Guy was put on warning when twelve milligrams of flunitrazepam went missing on his watch."

Wickham punches the air. "YES!"

I get to my feet to shake Jasper's hand and notice a cartouche tattoo on his wrist. Bird, lion, feather…the rest is covered by the cuff of his Black Sabbath t-shirt. "I'm guessing yours doesn't say Rick?" I ask.

He laughs. "No, Jasper. We're not real creative."

Wickham walks over and drapes an arm around each of our shoulders. "I think we have enough to bring this guy in for questioning. You want to go get him, Agent Mulder?"

"No, you go on ahead. I'm going to head over to my hotel. I want to check on some things."

Wickham shrugs and exchanges a high-five with Jasper as I slip my coat back on.

Something is tickling the back of my brain, but I can't quite hone in on what it is. If Scully were here she might be able to help me articulate it. I should call her. She wanted me to call her, right? This is about the case, so she can't object. And if I just happen to check up on her at the same time...two birds, one stone.

***

I get in the car and make a right onto the street, watching Wickham in my rear-view as he peels out of the parking lot.

Something feels wrong.

Flunitrazepam's not legal in this country and if the FDA is overseeing a study with it, they're watching it like hawks. No reason to think our killer wouldn't get it on the street like everyone else if he intended not to be tracked. Surely Leo would know that and couldn't possibly be so foolish as to lead us to him this easily. Is someone in his lab framing him?

Why would anyone frame him? It seems so obvious a setup. I have to find out who passed this information to Jasper.

If it's one of his buddies, it could be a prank. Someone trying to get back at Leo for experimenting on rats, maybe. Grad students love their causes. I suspect Jasper and his friends share the same poor taste in T-shirts and lame symbolic tattoos. In my book, the dubious joke of framing poor Leo wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Now that I have gotten used to the idea, I have to say that Scully's tattoo suits her. Not to mention that, in the artistic department, her Ouroboros trumps RickandJasper's cartouches by several stadions. It's Van Gogh's "Yellow House" next to a Thomas Kinkade cottage.

Not real creative indeed, Jasper.

I think back to his excited face as he came downstairs with the news. High-fiving Wickham, shaking hands…

Shaking hands.

Bird, lion, feather…that should correspond to J-A-S, but Rick's was eye, feather, basket. One of them is lying, because that feather cannot be both an I and a S.

I pull out my phone and call Frohike as I turn into the hotel parking lot. "Frohike, I need you to look up hieroglyphics for me."

"You guys after a mummy?" I can already hear the keyboard clacking.

"Serial killer."

"Boring. Okay, what do you need?"

"This guy had a cartouche tattoo on his arm. The symbols I saw from the top down were a bird, a lion, and a feather. There was more but I couldn't see.

"I'm looking now. How's your delectable partner?"

More delectable than you are capable of imagining.

"Mooning over you, as ever."

"Naturally. Okay, Mulder. Looks like you've got A-L-I on that tattoo. That mean anything?"

"Probably, since the guy with the tattoo said it spelled Jasper. Thanks, Frohike."

"Give the scrumptious Agent Scully my love."

I roll my eyes as I hang up and get out of the car, wracking my mental filing cabinet for anything beginning with Ali.

I can feel the answer circling like a shark; the tip of the dorsal fin peeking above the water but not fully visible. I walk to the elevator and get in, pushing the button for floor number seven and then slumping against the wall to think. I have encountered this name before. I close my eyes and flip rapidly back through the pages of my memory.

Ali...

Ali...

A cold sweat beads on my forehead as my eyes open.

Alibek Chalew - one of the glassblowing students Scully couldn't find.

The doors slide open a moment later and I rush to my room, battling with the keycard and then hurrying to the files on the desk. I tear through them and then find the name. Alibek Chalew, student at Mobtown Glassworks - the same shop where we found Montaldo. He took classes for three years, paid in cash, and hadn't been seen there for over seven months.

I call Scully.

"Scully, it's me. How are you?"

"Fine, thank you."

"Been to the doctor yet?"

"I'm going tomorrow. What's up, Mulder?" She sounds ever-so-slightly testy. I cut to the chase.

"Listen, do you have any info on that Alibek Chalew guy? One of those glassblowing students we couldn't reach?"

I chew my pencil and hear her rifling through some papers.

"He took some beginner classes and apparently showed remarkable proficiency. Then he went through their advanced classes, did some private instruction before leaving. You think he's the guy, Mulder? His name doesn't show up anywhere in any database I checked. That's awfully suspicious in itself."

"Yes it is. Was there a physical description?"

"Um…let me see. Here it is, much good may it do you. Caucasian male, early to mid twenties. Brown hair, brown eyes, of average weight, height and build. That should narrow things down nicely. "

"No kidding. Anything else you can tell me, Scully?"

She pauses and I can imagine her thinking hard, the fine crease between her eyebrows deepening, the way her mouth purses slightly.

"Leap year," she says finally.

I freeze. "What?"

"His birthday is on leap year."

"How do you know that?"

"The students birthdays are listed along with the names. Alibek Chalew was born on February 29th."

My heart is pounding. "Scully?"

"Yeah?"

"I have a good feeling about this one. Gotta go."

"Mulder, be careful."

"Aren't I always?"

"No, Mulder, you're not."

"Well, I'm bound to get it right one of these days. I'll call you later."

I hang up and start pacing around the room.

Well, what do you know? I think young Jasper just became a suspect.

Alibek...Alibek...what does it mean?

Why does he have Alibek tattooed on his arm in Egyptian?

I recall my words to Scully the other night. "You know, certain grimoires instruct practitioners of black magic to carry a heart under their right arm to cast a spell of invisibility."

The Grand Grimoire - described by A.E. Waite as "one of the most atrocious of its class" - was purportedly written by a man known as Alibek the Egyptian.

The Grand Grimoire is also known as the Red Dragon.

I think back to Jasper's shirt at that first crime scene. Manhunter - based on the book Red Dragon. The red dragon in the office. Xena the Warrior Princess… Princess Leia…Tiamat.

Jasper lying to get Wickham out of the station so he could…what?

Go kill the Amazon.

I run out of the room, calling Wickham as I race down the stairs. " Mulder?" he says. "I'm at Hopkins right now and they don't know anything about any missing -"

"It's Jasper," I say. "Jasper's the killer."

"WHAT?"

"I can't explain it now, Wickham, but trust me, it's him. He's going to go kill her now. Tell me where he lives and then get a team over there ASAP."

Wickham gives me careful directions and I get in my car and speed to the highway at a brisk 80 miles per hour.

***  
1218 GAGE COURT  
1:37 PM

 

Jasper Donnelly's house is down a side street in the not-fashionable part of Mount Washington. The car protests a bit as I nudge it along the steep, slippery hill and around a bend into a cul-de-sac.

The house is a prim Cape Cod, showing signs of age but in overall good repair. I park the car and climb out, my face buffeted by the chilling wind. I pull on a pair of latex gloves, then my warm leather ones on top as I pick my way across the muddied snow. I can't tell how recent any of the footprints or tire tracks are. I walk behind the house to peer into the fenced-in yard. There's a two-car garage off to the side and I can just make out a navy blue van through the smudged windows. I can't tell if there's another car in there or not and decide to assume he's home.

I see no evidence of security cameras, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Jasper is not stupid.

Don't screw this up, Mulder.

He's probably in the basement right now. He wants to hurry, but there are also ritualistic components to this that he doesn't want to rush. He'll take his time. He's arrogant too, or he wouldn't flaunt his dragons and warrior women.

He thinks he's invincible.

I decide that Jasper wouldn't put up cameras. He'd consider it an admission of weakness.

I return to the porch and remove the leather gloves, then pick the lock easily. The front door swings open quietly and I walk in to a dim front room with Spartan furnishings. Although Jasper is likely at work downstairs, I keep my gun drawn and move warily through the small rooms. I cannot see evidence of basement steps anywhere. Finally I come to the kitchen. There's a large shelving unit on the back wall and a crumpled rug in front of it. Upon closer inspection, I notice grooves on the floor under where the rug would normally lay. They curve away from the shelves in parallel arcs.

I holster my gun and grab the shelves, pulling hard, then stumble backwards as the whole thing swings forward, rumbling along the floor. The unit is mounted to a door.

I draw my weapon again and move cautiously forward. I take the steps slowly down into the gloom. A pale, sickly light bathes the plaster walls, but it dims as I move deeper into the hallway beyond the steps. Based on what I can make out, the basement extends underground far beyond the area of the house.

I continue inching along and until I reach a door which is cracked open, edges glowing with a cool, silvery light.

I slow down, sensing that I am about to step into the heart of Jasper's madness. Cecilia is near. If I announce my presence, he may kill her in a moment of spite or panic. If I hesitate, I may risk being too late.

Holding my gun in front of me, I start to move into the weirdest of basements. Even by my standards.

The large room has been meticulously decorated to resemble a woodland glade and I feel like I am outside on a summer night. The ceiling is a deep inky color, set with fiber optic stars which twinkle over the fake - though incredibly realistic - trees and a cluster of large rocks. I can hear a rush of water, off to the right. The whole scene is so vivid and serene that I almost forget I am in the basement of a particularly brutal serial killer.

A change in the texture of the floor gives me pause. It feels like I am on a thick carpet now, instead of the cheap tile or linoleum I've been walking on this far. I glance down briefly and realize that what I thought was carpet is a lush lawn of grass.

Grass?

I assume it's artificial, but cannot stop to inspect. I move further in, taking quiet, careful steps and trying not to panic. I have no protective gear on and Jasper - even if he doesn't know I'm here yet - will have the advantage as soon as he figures it out.

I walk forward, straining to see around trees, to get a glimpse of what else is in here. I notice a flash of movement in one of the far corners and point my gun towards it. About three yards ahead, beyond a low hedge, I see four or five deer and a pack of hounds; all stuffed and displayed in lifelike poses. Beyond that I catch the movement again and crouch down among the artificial bushes.

A woman rises to her feet past the deer and dogs. She is naked and wild-eyed, strands of brown hair clinging to her tear-streaked face. She pounds against an invisible barrier, her mouth open in a silent scream. I blink and realize she is in a small room made of soundproof glass, which - based on the fact that she does not look towards me - must also be composed of one-way mirrors.

He watches her here, unseen. I think of the legend of Actaeon, a hunter who dared to look upon the bathing Diana - goddess of the hunt and the moon - and she, in revenge, turned him into a stag and he was brought down by his own dogs.

I think of the venison found in the women's stomachs. Artemis forced to eat her sacred hinds.

I resist the urge to hurry over to the place where Cecilia is confined, watching her scream and sob. She doesn't seem in immediate danger, so I take a moment to scan the room, peering into the corners as far as I can. I don't see any signs of Jasper, so I make my way cautiously to the cage. The walls are smooth and I cannot figure out a way in. Cecilia's nails scrabble against the slick glass and she kicks wildly at it before crumpling to the floor in defeat. I can feel her panic radiate outward from the small prison.

I return to the black hallway and move along the outer wall until my fingers encounter the fabric of a heavy drape.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before...

You've got to hand it to Jasper. He knows his Occult classics.

I lift it to find that it hides an archway leading to another room, this one bathed in an ominous red light.

How original.

I walk further in and look around. The walls and floor are stone and are liberally spattered with gouts and rivulets of dried blood. A couple of yards away is a large stone altar, upon which is resting a stained crystal chalice and an evil-looking knife with an elaborate crystal handle. And a book. A tattered, dog-eared paperback that looks utterly out of place in so gothic a setting. I step closer, squinting to read the title in the dim light.

The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe.

I open the cover and see "Veronica Chalew" inscribed on the flyleaf in an elegant hand.

I return it to the altar and begin walking to the wall near the door when, from the corner of my eye, I see a man moving in the shadows. "FBI! FREEZE!" I yell, and point my gun at him.

Well, if Jasper was unaware of my home invasion before now, I've probably just clued him in. Heart pounding, I go to the mirror and see that it is the back of Cecilia's prison. Jasper reversed the glass on this side, likely so he can watch himself kill and so that the women can look out of their prisons and see that awful blood-stained altar and be reminded of what fate awaits them. I run my finger along the seam where the glass meets the wall and feel a tiny button. I push it and the door hisses open. Cecilia drops to the floor, her face hidden in her hands.

"Please, please," she begs. "Please, I haven't seen you. You can let me go. I won't tell anyone just let me go pleaseletmego..." Her voice trails off into keening.

"Cecilia, my name is Fox Mulder. I'm with the FBI and I'm here to take you home." I hold out my badge.

She shakes her head, keeping her eyes covered. "Nononono you can't trick me. I'm not looking, I'm not looking youcantmakemelook..." she starts to rock back and forth.

"Cecila, get UP! You have to get out of here!" I lunge in to snatch at her wrist, but she scrambles into the corner, mumbling sing-song nonsense to herself.

I glance over my shoulder and then toss my badge at her feet, but she ignores it. I curse under my breath then move in backwards to crouch next to her, keeping my gun trained on the doorway. I pick up my ID from the floor and she shudders when I nudge it into her hands.

"Just look at it Cecilia, look at the badge." I tell her, my eyes not leaving the door.

I don't know how long it takes her to summon the courage to do so, but it seems like an eternity elapses before I finally hear her whisper: "Oh God, I didn't think anyone was ever coming." She touches my hand, tentatively at first, and then grips it until her knuckles whiten.

I pull her up and she leans against me. We are just about to reach the cell's threshold when the door slides shut.

As I suspected it would the minute I stepped inside.

Cecilia lunges at the door, pounding at it furiously until I pull her gently away. I see Jasper waving from the other side of the glass. A speaker on the wall crackles to life and his cheerful voice pipes in. "Hi, Agent Mulder. You didn't buy my story about Leo for a minute, did you?"

"Nice to see you, Jasper. Is your buddy Rick here too?" I kick the glass and my shoe bounces off the surface. Behind me, Cecilia has begun to shiver. I remove my jacket and dress shirt, handing her both. She puts them on gratefully.

"I can't see you from my side, Agent Mulder, but don't bother kicking the glass. Cecilia can tell you it won't do any good. She's broken three toes that way. Isn't that right, Cecilia?"

I turn around to look down at Cecilia's feet and see that some of her toes are indeed bruised and swollen. The young woman shrugs. "I'd cut them off if it meant that bastard would let us out."

"And no, Rick isn't here." Jasper continues, taking hold of the chalice and filling it with the content from a green bottle. "You think he has the scope for this kind of thing? Please. He can't even kill lab rats."

I touch the cool wall of our prison. The glass is probably bulletproof and I risk a ricochet if I start shooting.

Jasper starts speaking again. "Before you and Agent Scully arrived, Jack Wickham told us that you were something of an expert on the paranormal. I assume you're familiar with the Red Dragon grimoire?"

"A spell of invisibility, Jasper? Is that how you managed this?"

He smiles. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Jasper is standing in the center of a nearly-finished pentagram drawn in what I presume to be blood on the stone floor. "You're trying to summon the Devil?" I ask. "Why would anyone want the Devil?"

Jasper picks his knife up from the altar and begins sharpening it. "When I was four years old, my mother had the daughter she'd always wanted. She stuck around until I was eight and then she took my sister and left me to the tender mercies of my father. Every night I prayed to God that my father would be too drunk to beat me. Or use me as an ashtray. Or starve me while he ate in front of my face because I forgot to empty the dishwasher. He never answered my prayers, Agent Mulder. Or he said no. Either way, I gave up on God."

This is sadly mundane. Mother leaves boy. Boy meets abuse. Abuse turns boy into a psychopath. I think they covered that pattern my second day at Quantico.

"Which one of them was left-handed?" I ask Jasper.

"Both. Contrary bitches."

"You call yourself Alibek Chalew when it concerns these…things you do, Jasper. Veronica Chalew, the name in that book. I bet that's your mother."

Jasper's smirk is vicious. "Only thing she left behind. A book that I doubt she even remembered. Then again, Mother made a point of forgetting everything she'd abandoned. Me included."

He takes the book, and flips through its pages thoughtfully.

"If she'd left a Bible I might have learned to turn the other cheek. But Poe gave a different view of the world to my eight year old self. Anybody who thinks that revenge doesn't taste sweet is a fool. I know that now."

Safe in the knowledge that he can not see me, I check my cell phone. I cannot say I'm surprised by the lack of signal but it was worth a try. I focus on Jasper again. "Many practitioners of shamanism and other magical arts believe that to possess a person's name is to possess their spirit. Alibek Chalew - the magician and the Amazon. That's what you're doing, isn't it?"

"She gave her name to my sister but not to me. So I took it."

"What else did you take? Where's your sister, Jasper?"

A slow smile crawls over his face. "People are too trusting, really. When the police came to ask where my sister was, all I had to do was give them a sorrowfully earnest look and claim I hadn't seen her in nineteen years."

"That doesn't answer my question."

Jasper lifts the chalice off the altar, then takes a swig of something dark I sincerely hope is a grape product. "I drink to the buried that repose around us."

The Cask of Amontillado, if I recall my Poe correctly. So she's entombed somewhere in this basement. I'd say the smart money's on the floor beneath this chamber.

"Where's your father?"

"He's been dead for years." Jasper holds the knife up and I watch the red light turn the handle to rubies. "Did you know that potassium chloride poisoning is a nearly undetectable way to cause a heart attack?"

Yes, I did. Scully threatens me with it every couple of months.

"How old were you, Jasper?"

"When I killed him? Fourteen. They put me in foster care. But no one wants a troubled teen for very long."

Whine, whine. I change topics. "You know I'm armed, right? And that I'll shoot you the first chance I get?" I decide not to tell him that Wickham is en route with the Quick Response Team.

"Agent Mulder, do you see those chrome pipes in the corners, at the top and bottom of the cell? They're going to start venting sevoflurane. You've got about three minutes of consciousness left before I slit your throats."

Now would be good, Wickham.

A soft hissing sound fills the room and I tear my t-shirt, wadding fabric into the valves. Cecilia does the same with my dress shirt and I lift her up to reach the top corners, but the sweet-smelling gas seeps around our attempts anyway.

We hold our breath and make masks of fabric, but I can feel myself starting to get dizzy. Cecilia blinks with an uncertain look on her face. Her head lolls to one side.

I slap at my cheeks and then see a shadow fall across the floor about six feet behind Jasper, who is kneeling in his incomplete pentagram. He is chanting in a low, even voice. "Non est diabolus, nisi daemonicus. Non est diabolus..." I force my eyelids open and watch as the shadow creeps up closer and closer until it crosses Jasper's line of vision. He jerks his head up and snatches his knife before getting to his feet.

Wickham walks in, gun drawn, and Jasper lunges at him, the foot-long blade flashing in the crimson light. Wickham fires twice. Jasper falls to the floor, twitching. Someone shouts "He's down!" and the last thing I see before the world goes black is the members of the QRT pouring into the room like soldier ants.

***

"Wakey, wakey," says Wickham.

I blink in confusion and open my eyelids, which seem to have been replaced by solid iron.

"Glargh," I mumble, my mouth cottony.

Wickham hands me a bottle of Gatorade and I sit up carefully. "Where's Cecilia?"

He jerks his head and I see her stretched out on the grass, attended by medics.

"Jasper?"

"Choppered him to Shock Trauma. I did more damage than I needed to and it's touch and go. One of my own guys..." He shakes his head sadly. "How did I not see it?"

"You couldn't have known, Wickham," I say, coughing slightly and drinking some more. "He had everyone fooled."

"I could have aimed for his knees. But I didn't." Wickham's expression looks carved from stone and I can tell it's the face he needs to wear to deal with what just happened.

"He's not dead," I remind him. "And neither is Cecilia."

Wickham shrugs. "So how'd you do it?" he wants to know. "Jasper had a spotless record."

I look around and then whisper, "Magic".

He groans. "I should have left you in there, you asshole. Gone to comfort Agent Scully in DC. Been the strong shoulder for her to cry on. She would have gotten over you in no time."

"And she'd have wiped her tears, blown her nose, and used you for target practice."

Wickham considers this. "We'd have matching gunshot scars."

"You're a real pal, Wickham."

"It was mostly self-preservation. I might have had to wipe a tear if you'd died. It would have been bad for my image."

I bat my lashes at him. "Aw, honey, I didn't know you cared."

He throws his hands in the air. "I give up. I'm just glad this is over and you're finally going back to DC."

"What about my tickets?" I say. "You promised me tickets."

Wickham snorts derisively. "That was before I found out you liked the Yankees. And we won't discuss the Scully situation." He gives me a pointed look.

"I won't push my luck," I concede.

***  
Preliminary Field Report for Case Number H-88742  
Special Agent Fox Mulder  
January 28, 1997

 

Jasper Frederick Donnelly was raised - though I use the term loosely - by his father after his mother took his younger sister and abandoned her son and husband when the former was eight years old.

Jasper's father alternately abused and neglected him and, over the years, Jasper came to blame his mother, Veronica Chalew, for his ill-treatment. He likened her to the Amazons who, according to legend, abandoned their male children in favor of their much-desired daughters. Due to his father's treatment, Jasper was often left to fend for himself and became a proficient hunter. He favored deer and geese. Interviews with past acquaintances suggest that he butchered some of the animals while they were still alive.

When Jasper was fourteen, his father died and the boy bounced around a series of foster homes until the age of eighteen. An exceptionally bright student, he won a full academic scholarship to the University of Maryland College Park where he completed his forensic science degree in three years. Jasper graduated summa cum laude and was accepted to Johns Hopkins University for a doctoral program in anatomy. He was working as a crime scene technician up to the time of these crimes and residing in the house he had lived in with his father.

A lab near the one in which he was working was conducting research on plastination based on the methods of Dr. Gunther van Hagen. It seems that Jasper managed to slip in undetected with the hearts and start the preservation procedures. As Agent Scully noted, he worked very rapidly, likely to get the hearts out before they were noticed. Full preservation was not completed.

When interviewed, Cecilia Busby could not explain how Jasper came to be in her apartment on Saturday morning or how she was removed from it. She recalled only opening her eyes to utter blackness and then feeling a numbness overtake her. Her next memory is of awakening in Jasper's mirrored cell. She has no recollection of any drugs being administered before her imprisonment.

Further inspection of Jasper Donnelly's house revealed that he had been using glass spheres to preserve the breasts of the women he killed; each marked to correspond to a point on the pentagram he had inscribed on his floor in what is assumed to be the victims' blood. A large cold-storage unit was located near the northwest corner of the basement and traces of hair and blood were found throughout. Results have not yet come back on the samples from either location. Jasper's sister, Hannah Chalew, was reported missing from her Morgan, Illinois home on January 5th. Her remains were found under the cell where he held his victims captive, her wounds consistent with those on the other bodies. A bow had been placed in her hands. Further analysis revealed it to be comprised of two of her own ribs joined together with a crystal handle. It is believed that her heart was the one left under the body of the first victim found. Their mother, Veronica Chalew, died of ovarian cancer in 1991.

Employees at Mobtown Glassworks recognized the knife Jasper used to kill the women, as he had made a prototype during his time as a student. In the further reaches of the basement, it was discovered that he had a small glassmaking furnace and workshop set up. The crystal of the knife handle as well as other crystal objects found matched perfectly the glass fragments found on Carla Stewart's heart.

The purpose of the selenium beads remain a mystery and Mr.Donnelly has refused to give any explanation regarding their usage or meaning. The number of beads in each victims' chest was found to correspond to a runic number etched on the crystal sphere in which their breasts were preserved. I further postulate that the choice of selenium is in some way connected to Selene, goddess of the moon. The Amazons worshipped the moon-goddess Artemis, whose cult had largely supplanted Selene's.

***  
42 HEGAL PLACE ALEXANDRIA, VA  
JANUARY 29

 

I take the elevator up to my floor, glad to be home and hoping the neighbor's kid remembered to feed my fish. I set my luggage down to unlock the door and then wander in, pulling my bags behind me and shutting the door with my foot.

I walk over to the aquarium to do a quick head count. They all seem to have survived my absence. I toss my overcoat on the couch and start to take off my jacket when my cell phone rings.

"FBI's Secret Profiling Weapon here."

"I read the headlines." Scully informs me. "Still basking in your glory? Too busy signing autographs to talk?"

"I can pencil you in." I carry my garment bag to my bedroom and start to empty it.

"I saw you on the news again last night. Remind me to buy you a decent tie for your birthday."

"So sweet of you to think of me."

"I can't have you make me look bad. I heard you played the damsel in distress to Wickham's white knight. Should I be jealous?"

"He didn't even kiss me goodbye. Scully, I'm crushed." I say, hanging my shirts in the wardrobe. "Listen, if we're going to start buying clothes for each other, I have a few things I'd like to pick out for you…"

"No, Mulder."

"It'll match your eyes."

"No, Mulder."

"Then you can't pick my ties."

"I can live with that."

"You're no fun." I abandon my unpacking and head for the kitchen. I open the fridge and am greeted by the aroma of beef lo mein that is quietly evolving into a more advanced life form. I shut the door. "What are you doing for lunch?"

"I'm not really dressed to go out right now. Mulder…"

I can hear a subtle shift in her voice; a slight reluctance in the way she says my name and I know right then that the sword of Damocles is falling towards me with deadly accuracy.

"Scully?"

"I need you to meet me at Holy Cross."

"What's wrong?" I grab my coat and head back out into the hallway.

"Just come meet me here, okay?

"Where at Holy Cross?"

Silence stretches over the line. I trot down the hall to the stairs, eschewing the elevator so as not to lose the call.

"Scully?"

"Oncology department," she finally offers.

My blood turns to ice water.

"Scully? What's going on?"

"I'll see you soon, Mulder."

"Wait -"

The dial tone offers nothing further.

THE END


	6. Obesa Cantavit: The Common Fate Gag Reel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We just couldn't let them go without saying goodbye!
> 
> Any resemblance to actual characters and events, borrowed or original, is completely deliberate on our part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was a bad case of ergot poisoning...

Scene: MULDER on phone

MULDER: "Where the hell have you been?"

VOICE ON THE PHONE: "Well, first I went to have my nails done, then I went to the hairdresser - you wouldn't *believe* the work to get that shade of red! Then I put a mighty dent in my G-woman salary when I saw that Manolo Blahnik sale across the street while I was on the stakeout…"

MULDER : "Scully, give that phone back to Skinner right now."

SCULLY: "You don't want to know how I spent the night?"

MULDER : "Give that phone back to Skinner."

SCULLY: "I was a bad girl."

Some struggling and laughter on the line.

SKINNER: "Mulder it's me."

MULDER: "Finally!"

**********  
Scene: SKINNER'S office

SCULLY: "Are we talking double standards here, sir? It's okay for you to pick up some pox ridden whore at a bar but I can't accept a dinner invitation from a guy I just met?"

SKINNER: "Er…Scully? That's not the line."

SCULLY : "Oh. I'm *so* sorry."

**********  
Scene: THE AUTHORS' office

MULDER: "Listen. You need to just let it go. Scully and I have talked this over and we feel like this is the right time for the horizontal mambo."

ALOYSIA: "No."

SCARLET: "Utterly out of the question."

ALOYSIA: "Besides, she just scored with Ed last week. Take it easy, Scully."

SCULLY: "You can't prove a damn thing. It was all very vague."

MULDER pats her shoulder comfortingly.

SCARLET : "Do not even go there with me. Anyway, this is a casefile. A season four casefile. You people don't get it on for years."

SCARLET scans through the timeline.

SCARLET: "See? Look at this! You haven't even done the bee thing in the hallway yet. Sex would directly conflict with canon."

MULDER: "Bee, schmee. Forget that crap. The creators of our universe couldn't tell you when we finally did the naked pretzel if their lives depended on it. You're denying our petition based on a bug?"

SCULLY: "Bees aren't technically bugs, Mulder. True bugs are in the order Hemiptera and are, in part, distinguished by the proboscis configuration of their sucking mouth parts. Bees are in the order Hymenoptera."

MULDER: "It is so hot when you do that."

SCULLY blushes and picks an invisible thread off of her jacket.

ALOYSIA: "I'm sorry, but I have to concur with Scarlet. There's just no way."

SCULLY and MULDER smirk at one another.

MULDER: "Fine. Be that way. But don't come crying to us if she hops in bed with Wickham and the fangirls kick your asses."

SCULLY : "He *is* rather attractive."

MULDER: "He's a stud. And that lab chick? What's her name?"

SCULLY: "Karen."

MULDER: "Right, Karen. Karen's a babe. And she's all science-y too. I dig that."

SCULLY puts her hands on Scarlet's desk and leans forward, looking dangerous.

SCULLY: "Don't make us threaten you."

MULDER: "It's so ugly. I like when everyone can get along."

ALOYSIA and SCARLET exchange a weary glance.

**********  
Scene: Autopsy bay

MULDER : "I know where the hearts are."

Stops and stares at WICKHAM lying on top of SCULLY on autopsy table.

SCULLY : "Oh, honey, it's not what it looks like."

WICKHAM: "If we're still looking for breasts, I'm way ahead of y- " *slap* "Ow!"

SCULLY: "Watch it, Jack. I can snap your trigger finger like a bamboo shoot."

WICKHAM : "I'm in love."

MULDER : "Oh you two are a riot, honestly."

**********  
Scene: Parking lot at the Maryland State Medical Examiner's Office

SCULLY: "Nice car, boys. Did you beat up a struggling pimp and steal his ride?"

MULDER: "Don't be a hater."

WICKHAM: "Agent Scully? Do you have a mirror in your pocket?"

SCULLY: "No, I'm sorry, I don't. Why?"

WICKHAM: "Because I can see myself in your pants."

SCULLY looks disgusted.

MULDER: "Come on Scully, you don't need this. Let's go grab a few beers. We'll play a drinking game. It's called, 'Drink 'til you fuck me.' "

SCULLY grinds her heel into MULDER'S foot.

WICKHAM: "Serious question. While we're at the ME's office, I was wondering if you dissect insects as well as humans."

SCULLY : "Insects?"

WICKHAM: "Yeah, I thought you might want to take a look inside my fly."

SCULLY removes her gun from the pancake holster.

MULDER: "Lame. You know, my b-ball homies call me Milk, Scully."

SCULLY : "Because you're white?"

MULDER: "Because I'll do your body good."

WICKHAM: "I think this has gone far enough. Agent Scully, I must apologize for my unprofessional conduct. And, may I add, that suit is very becoming on you. Of course, if I were on you, I'd be coming too."

MULDER: "I'm going to beg to differ on that one. That suit isn't becoming on you at all, Scully. It would look much better on my hotel floor in about an hour."

SCULLY racks the slide on her Sig Sauer P228.

**********  
Scene: MULDER'S hotel room

SCARLET: "CUT! Where is Scully?"

MULDER: "She's on the floor again. You guys can't let her drink like this. She's not used to it."

SCULLY : "Over here. Ow." 

SCARLET: "Get up, Scully. Last time, come on."

SCULLY : "These jamamas are too slipp'ry. Why I have to wear satin?"

ALOYSIA: "Hey, at least we let you skip the usual push-up bra and full make-up."

SCARLET and ALOYSIA confer briefly.

ALOYSIA: "Wardrobe! Someone get her out of those stupid satin pajamas. Don't we have anything in cotton? She keeps sliding off the damn bed."

COSTUME SUPERVISOR: "I'm sorry, but Mr. Carter has always been fairly strict. We only have satin in her size. And some silk. She doesn't get flannel for three years."

SCULLY tries to lie down next to MULDER again and slides back down to the floor.

MULDER: "Scully? Are you okay?"

SCULLY: "...and I helped him drink his wine! And he always had some mighty fine wine..."

SCARLET: "Well, we can't leave her like this. It's ridiculous. Mulder, do you have anything she can wear?"

MULDER: "Uh, some running shorts and a t-shirt, I guess."

ALOYSIA : "Red Stripe? What the hell, Mulder?"

MULDER: "I'm a big supporter of the Jamaican bobsled team, mon."

SCARLET: "All right, people! Places. Scully, we're going to get you into shorts and a t-shirt, so just hang in there. Aaaaand ACTION!"

SCULLY: "Muuuulder was a bullfrog…."

**********  
Scene: Sticky Fingers Boutique

RICK: "Dude, you can't wear that shirt. That's fucked up even by your standards."

JASPER: "I'm a serial killer! I'm totally badass."

RICK: "Here, look at this one. 'Read this shirt, buy the next round. I don't make the rules, I just wear the shirt.' That's funny, right?"

JASPER: "It has no depth. No soul. See, the Manhunter thing worked on, like, two different levels. The Nick Cave shirt was cool because he just released his Murder Ballads album. Black Sabbath because of the whole grimoire-black magic thing, and duh on the manslaughter one. That drink shirt says nothing about who I am."

RICK: "Yes, but 'Women are like parking spots. They're whores and liars?' I think that's a bit much. Plus it really tips your hand."

JASPER: "Fine. What about this one? It says, 'I know violence isn't the answer. I got it wrong on purpose.' "

RICK: "Jasper?"

JASPER: "Yeah?"

RICK: "Keep looking."

**********  
Scene: Maryland State Medical Examiner's Office

SCULLY opens vending room door to find MULDER and KAREN in flagrante delicto.

SCULLY: "Well, well, well. Looks like you two are making quite a bit of headway on the case. So to speak."

MULDER: "Oh, you're one to talk. Fetching a snack to help Wickham keep his stamina up?"

KAREN: "I think I'd better go."

MULDER: "No."

SCULLY: "Don't worry about it, Karen. I have work to do anyway."

KAREN: "Actually, I have work too. I need to get those tubes out of the thermocycler in five minutes."

SCULLY : "That's okay, by my calculation you should be left with 3 minutes to spare."

SCULLY purchases a bag of Utz potato chips, stalks from the room.

MULDER: "Now, that was cold."

ALOYSIA: "Shit."

SCARLET: "Like we needed a rift now…"

ALOYSIA: "Remember Comity?"

SCARLET : "They say it took months for them to even look at each other after that one."

ALOYSIA: "You don't think we should…"

SCARLET: "...give in?"

ALOYSIA: "Yeah."

SCARLET: "Like we have a choice."

**********  
SCENE: Train station

SCARLET: "You two come down RIGHT NOW!"

ALOYSIA: "What's going on?"

SCARLET : "Look where they are!"

ALOYSIA: "They're on the train roof? What the hell are they..." "Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me!"

SCARLET : "And he can't sing any better than her."

ALOYSIA : "Is that…"

SCARLET : " 'My Heart Will Go On.' Yes."

MULDER & SCULLY both standing at the edge of the roof with arms extended.

MULDER: "I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD!"

SCULLY: "Near, far, wherever you aaaaaaare, I believe that the heart does go ooooooon…"

SCARLET: "Bastards."

ALOYSIA : "We're going to miss the sunset."

SCARLET : "We'll have to wait for the morning now."

ALOYSIA: "Listen, they've stopped."

SCARLET: "That, or someone shot them."

ALOYSIA: "I see legs dangling now. Come on."

The Authors approach the train cautiously. A wrapper falls at their feet.

SCARLET: "Scully? What are you doing."

SCULLY: "Eating a burger."

ALOYSIA : "And why are you eating a burger on a train roof, while we are waiting for you to wrap this up?"

SCULLY: "I need iron."

SCARLET: "Come down, do the scene and I'll buy you a nice T-bone."

SCULLY: "Cheapskate."

SCARLET: "Okay, how about…"

ALOYSIA : "Don't say 'venison'."

SCARLET: "…Chateaubriand?"

ALOYSIA: "Why do you need iron?"

SCULLY : "You people have bled me half to death. I'm severely anemic right now and quite dizzy."

ALOYSIA: "She's got a point."

SCARLET : "And where's Mulder?

SCULLY: "Daily Grind for those little cream cheese danishes. He thinks if he doesn't show up for the goodbye you won't send me away."

ALOYSIA : "FOX MULDER! If you don't get over here right this minute, you are in very serious trouble, mister."

SCARLET: "We're writing Frohike slash if you don't come back NOW!"

MULDER : "Oh God. I swear, I'll be good. Look, I brought you pastry. See? I'm being nice."

ALOYSIA : "You're on warning, my friend."

SCARLET: "Oooh, is that an éclair?"

**********  
Scene: JASPER's basement

JASPER: "up urz, ceiling cat! basement cat, i can haz venjintz nao?"

WICKHAM: "o hai. im in ur lare, freein ur doodz."

WICKHAM shoots JASPER, then frees MULDER and CECILIA.

MULDER: "o hai wikkum."

WICHKAM: "jaspr? srsly?"

MULDER: "srsly."

WICKHAM: "wtf? hey, i can haz skulee nao?"

MULDER: "no, u can haz beerz and cheezburgrz. i wil buyz u dem."

WICKHAM: "disapoyntid wikkum iz disapoyntid."

MULDER: "don' be takin' mah skulee."

JASPER: : "omgz, wikkum. FAIL."

**********  
Scene - JASPER's basement

Mulder lifts the curtain leading to the altar room.

VOICE #1: "Say what you want pretty boy, I will not fold."

VOICE#2: "You can't keep this up forever. I know you're bluffing."

VOICE#1: "What are you now, psychic?"

VOICE#2: "Hey, could that be an X-File?"

VOICE#1: "A pretty lame one, they've had more psychic cases than you can shake a stick at."

VOICE#2: "If it's Agent Scully doing the shaking I won't mind."

VOICE#1: "I'm sure you wouldn't."

MULDER enters the room. SKINNER and WICKHAM are playing cards over the altar, smoking cigars.

MULDER: "Oh, come on guys!"

SKINNER: "Hey Mulder, where have you been?"

WICKHAM: "Sit down, have a cigar. Jasper's at the dentist, he should be back in an hour."

MULDER: "What?"

SKINNER : "Tooth decay has no mercy for serial killlers."

WICKHAM: "And the sacrificial knife is over here, just in case you feel like stabbing me in the back again."

MULDER : "You're never going to forgive me, are you?"

WICKHAM : "Nope."

SKINNER: "And neither will I."

MULDER : "Oh, Walter, we talked about this."

SKINNER: "Smartass."

MULDER : "Ours is the love that dare not speak its name."

SKINNER: "Mine is the foot that's gonna kick your ass."

WICKHAM : "Why Scully is still working with you two is a mystery."

MULDER: "We're not real clear on it ourselves. Her life just gets increasingly worse. We have this baby who - "

SKINNER: "Please don't knock her up, Mulder. Let the woman have a little dignity. Don't make her trail around after you pregnant."

MULDER: "No, it's okay. I get abducted by aliens and killed first."

WICKHAM: "I'll pay her a little visit then. Keep her company for you. Pregnant women put out, you know. Have any threes, Walter?"

SKINNER: "Go fish."

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Edmund Waller, whose "Go, Lovely Rose" gave us the title. Also, we don't like the name Gouveia either, but it's canon.
> 
> Aloysia says: This has been the most fantastic roller coaster ride! I was skeered to tackle co-writing at first because Scarlet and I have such different styles and approaches, but we almost immediately got to this creepy point where we were reading one another's minds and all doubts about our ability to mesh evaporated. We edited each other and blended scenes to the point where there are a few bits that we are each dead certain the other wrote. Doing this by IM and e-mail with a 5 hour time difference, summer vacations, and other hurdles has been a delightful challenge. Scarlet is a trooper for putting up with my hyperactive jumping from scene to scene. Thanks for all the fish, lady. It's been such fun! I am deeply indebted to the Holy Triumvirate of Betas - Amanda, Dasha, and Mim - for tireless nitpicking, warm words of encouragement, and their contempt for semicolons, nonsense, and the word "and."
> 
> In closing, I would like to add that hosiery and sex are not mutually exclusive. Just sayin'…
> 
> Scarlet says: I second my partner in crime to convey my deepest thanks to our three amazing betas. Amanda, Dasha and Mim. We were so incredibly lucky to have you guys around to keep us honest.
> 
> I asked Aloysia if she fancied writing a post Never Again vignette on a hunch. I loved her stories, had been her beta for several months - and yet, she was still talking to me, in spite of my "Merciless, brutal criticism involving burning smartassery" (her words). As far as I was concerned her mettle had been well and truly tested. So we started writing together and had so much fun, that the vignette quickly turned into a full blown case file. This happened at around the same time we stopped letting our respective jaw drop because - while using Instant Messaging - we'd typed the same line, at the same time, *again*. Our very own X-File.
> 
> I guess the most difficult thing for me - linear girl - was to work on various scenes at different points in the timeline; but that was such a small price to pay for the wonderful gift of working with someone who can turn your ideas into words just like *that*, who knows the places where Mulder and Scully evolve, who will dig out hotels and cemeteries layouts for you and who can write an autopsy scene so brilliantly you can actually smell the blood and guts. Put it this way, I would never have been able to write something this detailed on my own, and my Mulder would still be mixing up his baseball with his cricket. So thank you for doing this with me. This has been an amazing journey and if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a day.


End file.
